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MASTERS OF ADVERTISING COPY 


OTHER BOOKS BY 
J. GEORGE FREDERICK 


Business Research and Statistics 
Modern Salesmanagement 
Book of Business Standards 


The Great Game of Business 
GCs, ELC. 


MASTERS of 
ADVERTISING COPY |: 


Principles and PRACTICE of 
COPY WRITING ACCORDING to 
its LEADING PRACTITIONERS 


Edited by J. GEORGE FREDERICK 
President of the Business Bourse; 
Formerly Managing Editor of ‘‘Printer’s Ink,” 
“‘Advertising and Selling,” etc. 


NEW YORK 
FRANK-MAURICE, Inc. 
MCMXXV 


EXER IER TREN ER IR ER ER ER ERR ER ERE ERR ER REN 
eee 


BEX 


etetetetetetetetete tet. 


Copyrricut, 1925 
By FRANK-MAURICE, Inc. 


Printed in the United States of America by 
J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 


i A ae 6 itm Lr) 


A SYMPOSIUM 


JOSEPH H. APPEL 

BRUCE BARTON 
HUMPHREY M. BOURNE 
HARRY E. CLELAND 
ROBERT H. DAVIS 
GEORGE L. DYER 

F. R. FELAND 

FRANK IRVING FLETCHER 
RICHARD A. FOLEY 

J. K. FRASER 

MRS. CHRISTINE FREDERICK 
KENNETH M. GOODE 
JOHN STARR HEWITT 


by 


A. HOLMES 

CLAUDE C. HOPKINS 

RUTH LEIGH 

THEODORE F. MacMANUS, LL.D. 
JOHN LEE MAHIN 

BEN NASH 

WILBUR D. NESBIT 

A. O. OWEN 

CHARLES ADDISON PARKER 
T. HARRY THOMPSON 
HARRY TIPPER 

JAMES WALLEN 

HELEN WOODWARD 


J. GEORGE FREDERICK 
EDITOR 


- 


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2 


CHAPTER 


VIII. 


IX. 


Table of Contents 


PREFACE 
The Editor 


INTRODUCTION 
J. George Frederick 


WorDS ARE THE WorRKING TOOLS 
T. Harry Thompson 


ADVERTISING Copy AND THE WRITER 
Frank Irving Fletcher 


THe ADVERTISING WriTER Wuo Is 
BIGGER THAN His Ap 

George L. Dyer 

Human APPEALS IN Copy ” . 

Bruce Barton 


THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF Goop 
(LOD YR EM rae oL My TM prer emt Ban rte M Ok. 2° A! 

Theodore F. MacManus, LL.D. 

EMOTION AND STYLE IN ADVERTISING Copy 

James Wallen 


Some Lessons I Have LEARNED IN Ap- 
VERTISING) 4!) 2: 

Claude C. Hopkins 

Cory — Goop, Bap AND INDIFFERENT . 

Richard A. Foley 

Tue Researcu Basis oF Copy . 

J. George Frederick 


AXIoMsS OF ADVERTISING 
Joseph H. Appel 


Vii 


x 


PAGE 
II 


13 
43 


47 


55 
65 


77 


93 


IIS 
127 
ISI 


177 


CHAPTER 


a 


XI. 


Cory inst a6 185 

Kenneth M. Goode 

Maxkinc ADVERTISEMENTS Reap . 197 

F. R. Feland 

Cory Downt’s 209 

1 BB OS Oak 

WanTED — By THE DeEar Pus ic 215 

Charles Addison Parker / 

ADVERTISING Copy AND THE So-CALLED ~ 
““AVERAGE WOMAN”. 225 

Mrs. Christine Frederick 

BELIEVABLE ADVERTISING . 247 


O. A. Owen 


Looxinc at Copy anp Looxine Into Ir 265 
Harry E. Cleland 


THe Human Swe oF It 277 

Wilbur D. Nesbit 

Copy Tuat Is anp Isn’r . 289 

Harry Tipper 

THE Sates Power oF Goop Copy as 
DEMONSTRATED IN Book ADVERTISING 305 

Helen Woodward 

Tue Copy Wrirer’s Work BENcH . 313 


John Starr Hewitt 


THE PsycHoLocy oF THE PRINTED WorkK 329 
A. Holmes, A.M., Ph.D. 


SIMPLICITY IN ADVERTISING Copy 349 
Humphrey M. Bourne 

Wuat Makes Goop Retait Copy . 361 
Ruth Leigh 

Tue ArT oF VISUALIZING Goop Copy . 373 


Ben Nash 


Op AnD New Days IN ADVERTISING Copy 383 
John Lee Mahin 


vill 


¥ l Am the Printing Press x 


I am the printing press, born of the mother earth. 
My heart is of steel, my limbs are of iron, and my 
fingers are of brass. 

I sing the songs of the world, the oratorios of history, 
the symphonies of all time. 

I am the voice of to-day, the herald of to-morrow. I 
weave into the warp of the past the woof of the future. 
I tell the stories of peace and war alike. 

I make the human heart beat with passion or tender- 
ness. I stir the pulse of nations. I make brave men do 
braver deeds. 

I inspire the midnight toiler, weary at his loom, to lift 
his head again and gaze, with fearlessness, into the vast 
beyond, seeking the consolation of a hope eternal. 

When I speak, a myriad people listen to my voice. 
The Saxon, the Latin, the Celt, the Hun, the Slav, the 
Hindu, all comprehend me. | 

I am the tireless clarion of the news. I cry your joys 
and sorrows every hour. [I fill the dullard’s mind with 
. thoughts uplifting. I am light, knowledge, power. | 
epitomize the conquests of mind over matter. 

I am the record of all things mankind has achieved. 
My offspring comes to you in the candle’s glow, amid the 
dim lamps of poverty, the splendor of riches; at sunrise, 
at high noon, and in the waning evening. 

I am the laughter and tears of the world, and I shall 
never die until all things return to the immutable dust. 


I am the printing press. 
ROBERT H. DAVIS. 


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Preface x 


NB 


HE list of authors of the present volume includes 
men and women. who incontestably are or have 
been in the front rank of their profession; whose 

work is or has been very conspicuously successful; whose 
record of service in advertising is long, notable or dis- 
tinguished and whose claim to be included is self-evident 
in their contributions. By good fortune, there are in- 
cluded the writings on copy of several outstanding men of 
acknowledged genius in advertising, who are now dead. 
One of these, George L. Dyer, has left almost no other 
written record of his point of view, except in the splen- 
didly successful advertising of his clients. The selection, 
therefore, the editor believes, is notably representative 
of American masters of advertising copy. 

It is advisable to note here that the authors of the 
chapters have been permitted to paragraph or sub-head 
their material in their own way, without attempt at mak- 
ing style uniform. This, the editor believes, is a courtesy 
inherent in the subject and the plan. 

The matter of reproduction of examples of advertise- 
ments has, by common consent, been omitted, for the 
simple reason that, like hats, advertisements go out of 
style in appearance, and this book is meant to focus at- 
tention not on external form, but on the principles of 
copy. 

It may be anticipated that in future editions of this 
book other contributors will be included, for the problems 
of advertising are now greater than ever. The editor 

II 


Le Masters of Advertising Copy 


cherishes the hope that the readers will agree with him 
that the book is not only practically helpful in the study 
of copy, but is also historically important, as it collects 
and conserves the writings of the men who have made 
history in advertising writing. 
THe Epiror. 


INTRODUCTION 


The Story of Advertising Writing 
By J. George Frederick 


ERMIT yourself, if you will, to be transported for 
P a swift sight-seeing ride, backward over the dead 
centuries. The reward will be an adequate per- 
spective on advertising which we moderns tend to regard 
as rather a present-day invention. 

Presto! We are back 25,000 years, among the silent 
woods and hills of France, in the caves (recently dis- 
covered) of stone-age men. Being shades, we enter the 
rocky hallway unobserved, past the fires around which 
squat short, hairy men. By the flaring light of these 
fires we see on the walls many crude carvings, and we 
move along toward the first advertising workshop. A 
caveman stands at the wall hammering at the rock, mak- 
ing a bas-relief which will advertise his hunting prowess 
to his fellow-hunters. He has finished the picture and 
is cutting the headline of the ad, using some strange 
symbols—the forerunners, possibly, of language, set in 
Caslon type! 

In another instant, we are at Babylon, 3500 B. C., not- 
ing a diligent personage in a high headdress manipulat- 
ing a kind of stylus upon a little pat of red soft clay. 
He is working with speed and neatness, making cuneiform 
letters with an ease and grace startlingly similar to that 
of the man in a modern department store, lettering a 
window sign with a lettering pen. Finishing the writing, 

13 


14 Masters of Advertising Copy 


the Babylonian gently sets his clay tablet into an oven and 
bakes it. On the morrow he will send a runner with it 
to some distant points along the Euphrates. It contains 
a statement of what cattle and feed his employer (I al- 
most said his client) has for sale, and at what prices. 
He is the first hired advertising man. I have in my pos- 
session this very clay tablet or its prototype. 

Again we spread wings and let a dozen or two of 
centuries slip under our feet, and we are in Thebes, 
Egypt, about 1100 B. C. An austere Egyptian aristocrat 
is dictating: to his amanuensis a statement that he will 
offer a reward for the return of a valuable slave who has 
run away. The amariuensis is writing this ‘fad’ upon 
papyrus. -It will probably be hung up in public. You can 
see the original in the British. Museum to-day. Papyrus 
isthe first dim hint of. the’ newsprint and the other mem- 
bers of the paper family upon-which millions of ‘ads’ 
are to be printed 3,000 years later. 

Gently we let time glide us forward until we find our- 
selves-in Greece and Rome. Both these great peoples, 
from whom we have borrowed so much else that has en- 
nobled and enriched our heritage, were very familiar 
indeed with advertising. [here must have been some- 
thing of a profession of advertising then, for the walls 
of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which are visible to-day, 
were crowded full of announcements painted in black and 
red. The things advertised were plays, exhibitions, gladi- 
atorial shows, salt- and fresh-water baths. Bills termed 
libelli were the media of news of sales of estates, lost 
and found articles, absconded debtors, etc. Police regu- 
lations were given to the public via.such advertisements ; 
and some were permanently cut in stone and terra cotta 
relief, set in pilasters decorating the front of public 
buildings. 

Even the ancient Greeks had the crier—a most im- 


J. George Frederick 15 


portant person indeed, who generally was an officer of 
the state or municipal government. He went about cry- 
ing his news like any good advertising man dictating his 
ads—with this difference: he was accompanied by a 
musician! The flamboyant advertising adjective was 
probably born with him, for he is reputed to have used 
much hyperbole and rhetorical flourish. He must have 
had good advertising results or he would not have been 
continued so long. 

We now fly over a dark void of many centuries; for 
with the decay of Roman civilization Europe:sank to an 
illiterate level, to a long period of retrogression. Still, 
advertising being a fundamental human necessity, it did 
not disappear like other things of civilization; it merely 
receded to the mode of the ancient Greeks—the crier 
just described. ‘These public criers of the Middle Ages 
were actually an organized body of advertising men, func- 
tionaries of the state, as in old Greece. They had a 
peculiar, standardized call, of which one is reminded when 
one hears even a modern law court called to order with 
the words: ‘‘Oyez, oyez!”” When this call—this ad— 
fell upon the ears of the public, people rushed from out 
of their homes to hear. The criers had exclusive right 
to news of auctions and other sales. News of weddings, 
christenings, funerals, royal decrees, offerings of mer- 
chandise fell from their lips. Later individual merchants 
employed individual criers. 

Even in the eighteenth century, the noise of criers in 
the streets was a fair parallel to our noise of autos and 
fire engines and Coney Island. - It was a pandemonium 
of “Buy, Buy, Buy’; ‘Rally up,. ladies’; ‘“What d’ye 
lacks? 

Later came the English medieval guilds and the huge 
City Companies who used the equivalent of the modern 
poster. The Weavers’, the Mercers’, Glovers’, Gold- 


16 Masters of Advertising Copy 


smiths’, or Haberdashers’ Guilds vied with each other to 
devise elaborate signs, which were suspended from shops, 
elevated on posts, and even made into archways. An 
Act of Parliament in 1762 limited the signs, and then 
more artistry was used. Even such famous artists as 
Hogarth, Holbein, Correggio and others painted signs. 
The era of advertising writing and advertising art was 
begun! 

But already that greatest of civilized tools, the print- 
ing press, had been acquiring facilities for taking over 
the raucous job of the criers. William Caxton brought 
the first printing press to England in 1477. He started 
to print his signs (“‘handbills”; from the Latin si signis, 
‘if anybody,” with which words the handbills usually be- 
gan). The advertising possibilities of these handbills 
were quickly evident, and soon taverns, town halls, walls 
and even cathedrals were posted with them; advertising 
books, plays, boxing shows, merchandise, etc. 

Then came newspapers and periodicals, starting with 
Nathaniel Butter’s Weekly Newes in London, in 1632. 
They were mainly what we would to-day call “house or- 
gans’’ for politicians, parties and persons, but written 
with delicious venom and spleen. Butter was the first pub- 
lisher in the world to print an ad, but the first publication 
to get paid for it was Mist’s Weekly Journal. The first 
publisher who realized the future of advertising was Sir 
Robert L’Estrange, who had three publications, one 
boldly proclaiming itself the especial carrier of ads—the 
Mercury, or Advertisements Concerning Trade (1668). 

The London Gazette (1666) carried the following 
announcement : 


An advertisement being daily prest to the Pub- 
lication of Books, Medicines and other things not 
properly the business of a Paper of Intelligence. 
This is to notifie once for all, that we will not 


J. George Frederick 17 


charge the Gazette with advertisements, unless they 
be matters of State, but that a paper of Advertise- 
ments will be forthwith printed apart, and recom- 
mended to the Publick by another hand. 


It is perfectly evident from the above that disdain was 
the prevalent attitude to advertisements. ‘This is per- 
haps reflected in the fact that from 1712 all the way to 
1853, the Crown levied a tax on advertisements. 

However, with the first daily paper, the Daily Courant, 
London (1762), advertising became a matter-of-fact and 
important part of daily life in the sense that we know it 
to-day. 

And with this development came also, naturally, the 
advertising writer, even the advertising agent. The cof- 
fee houses were the haunts of the /iterati, and the habitat 
of the advertising man in those days—again naturally— 
was the coffee house. Thus even in those pioneering days, 
as now, advertising was intertwined with the literary and 
the artistic life of the people. Dr. Johnson himself did 
not consider it beneath him to write advertising copy. 
The coffee houses functioned as the offices of advertising 
agents, who collected ‘‘advertorial copy’? and passed it 
to the periodicals. Such coffee houses as The Star in St. 
Paul’s churchyard, Suttle’s Coffee House in Finch Lane 
and a coffee house in Ave Maria Lane were hangouts 
for ad men, doing business over the bar, writing ads on 
the bar or on the tables. 

What was advertising copy like in those days? Here 
is an example from the Publick Advertiser, ana 19, 1657, 
entitled ‘“[The Virtue of Coffee’: 


In Bartholomew Lane, on the backside of the 
Old Exchange, the drink called Coffee, which is a 
very wholesom and Physical drink, having many 
excellent vertues, closes the Orifice of the Stomach, 


18 Masters of Advertising Copy 


fortifies the heat within, helpeth Digestion, quick- 
eneth the Spirits, maketh the heart lightsom, is good 
against Eye-Sores, Coughs or Colds, Rheums, Con- 
sumptions, Headache, Dropsie, Gout, Scurvy, King’s 
Evil, and many others, is to be sold both in the 
morning and at three of the clock in the afternoon. 


Addison’s famous Spectator, whose literary reputation 
lingers to this day, carried a typical small ad in 1711: 


Mrs. Attway states that she will sell a quantity 
of good silk gowns, a parcel of rich brocades, vene- 
tian and thread satins, tissues and damasks—great 
pennyworths bought of people that have failed. 


The advertising need and urge have been shown 
here in historical perspective over the long centuries of 
humanity’s past. ‘his need and instinct have been im- 
plicit in human nature and human life, as literature it- 
self testifies. The anecdote of Alcibiades who had de- 
termined to become famous will illustrate. He knew he 
had to make people “‘talk,” so he bought the most fa- 
mous dog in the community and cut off his tail! Then the 
public “talked,” and Alcibiades was a name known to all! 
We have also Bob Sawyer in Dickens’ Pickwick Papers, 
who, to build his reputation as a doctor, plotted with his 
boy to call him from church in the middle of the service 
with all possible commotion, in order to impress the peo- 
ple with his busy practise. We would know these things 
to-day as trick press agentry, outside the pale of good 
advertising. 


*k *K * so K *k * 


The American colonies in the earlier days, being at 
that period rather an exact duplicate of England, in cus- 
tom and practise, had much the same advertising his- 
tory, even to the town criers. 


J. George Frederick 19 


Advertising in America, outside of criers and hand- 
bills, was naturally dependent upon periodicals, and it 
was 1704 before an American weekly was founded (The 
Boston News Letter), which forty years later could boast 
of having only 300 subscribers! It was 1778 before the 
first daily newspaper (The Pennsylvania Packet) ap- 
peared. The first magazine appeared in 1741, in Phila- 
delphia—oddly enough two rivals were born three days 
apart. Of these one was published by Benjamin Frank- 
lin, who claimed that his rival, Bradford, had stolen his 
idea from the announcement advertisement. But alas, 
only three numbers of the rival’s magazine ever appeared, 
and only six numbers of Franklin’s General Magazine or 
Historical Chronicle. Before the end of the century, 
however, forty or more magazines were started, and 
many newspapers. 

Advertising in these periodicals modeled itself defi- 
nitely along English lines, and we now see how perfect a 
reflex of the life and habits of the people the advertise- 
ments of a period can be. The “‘ads”’ of that period are 
like peeps into the windows of the families of the day. 
The New York Journal (which few people realize was 
published that early) contained in 1766 this ad, rather 
brutally calling to mind the great distance we have trav- 
eled in humanitarian principles: 


To be sold, for no fault, a very good wench, 
22 years old, with a child 18 months old. Enquire 
of the printer. 


Men wrote their own advertisements in those days; 
even men like Washington and Jefferson. (It is some- 
times overlooked that both these men possessed and op- 
erated various business enterprises. ) 

It is hard, in discussing advertising in America, not to 
give attention to Benjamin Franklin, for he was an ad- 


20 Masters of Advertising Copy 


vertising writer by instinct and inclination, and is bound 
up inseparably with the dévelopment of printing, pub- 
lishing and advertising in America. He began to print 
in 1728. His Pennsylvania Gazette came into existence 
in 1729. In 1741 he published his General Magazine 
which had a short life, but not too short to print one and 
only one advertisement, which, it would appear, was the 
first American advertisement. Here it is: 


There isa FE RRY kept over Potomack (by the 
Subfcriber) being the Poft Road and much the 
nigheft way from Annapolis to Williamfburg, 
where all Gentlemen may depend on a ready Paf- 
fage in a good new Boat with able Hands. Richard 
Brett, Deputy-Poft-Mafter at Potomack. 


For a century after this American advertising, as else- 
where, made practically no progress, being confined to 
classified ads of a local, provincial kind. 

The advertising situation at about the Civil War pe- 
riod was the farthest conceivable distance from the pres- 
ent-day status. Not the faintest inkling seems to have 
penetrated anybody’s mind as to what was coming. The 
establishment of the big dailies (New York Sun, 1833; 
New York Herald, 1835; New York Tribune, 1841; 
Philadelphia Public Ledger, 1836) did not develop much 
advertising. Few used the columns of these large city 
dailies, to-day carrying millions of lines of display—far 
much beyond the classified ads of the routine variety. 

It was Robert Bonner, who was the Hearst or the 
Curtis of his day with his New York Ledger—a man with 
the advertising instinct sticking out, all over him—who 
first stirred up the display advertis ng idea in a really 
modern sense. He startled people i staking entire page 
ads to say in large letters: ‘‘Fanny Fern writes only 
for the Ledger.” We got amazing results, for a signifi- 


J. George Frederick Zh 


cant reason—he had the advertising stage all to him- 
self, and the law of contrast gave him 100% advantage. 
“T get all the money I can lay my hands on and throw 
it out to the newspaper,” he said, ‘“‘and before I get back 
to my office there it all is again, and a lot more with it!” 
Bonner’s instinct for publicity was like Barnum’s; he was 
a great showman. His paper, which Godkin satirically 
said was filled with “tales of The Demon Cabman, The 
Maiden’s Revenge” and other “low and coarse”’ material, 
got Edward Everett to write for it—Everett, ex-presi- 
dent of Harvard, ex-ambassador, exquisite stylist and 
scholar! It made a sensation. 

Now for the paradox: although Bonner used adver- 
tising with great success, nobody else did; and his Ledger, 
which was the Cosmopolitan or the Saturday Evening 
Post of the day, never carried a single ad! ‘Vhere were 
no business houses which considered its space valuable. 
The magazines of the period were so completely without 
advertising patronage that George P. Rowell, founder 
of Printers’ Ink, once became the owner of the outside 
cover page of Our Young Folks for a year, but even he 
could not dispose of it, so he used it himself. 

The truth is, advertising was looked down upon, not 
only by the public, but by business men. Not only was/{ 
it unvalued; it was actually an object of contempt. It| 
is amusing to-day to note the airs put on by The Chicago 
Magazine, for instance, before the Civil War. It frankly 
announced that its editorial plans were ‘‘to daguerreotype 
leading citizens in nearby towns”’ (a little graft game we 
know how to smile at to-day) ; yet it was able to say in 
the same issue, ‘“‘we respond to the wish of a contemporary 
that we might be at = to dispense with advertising, but 
at present the law necessity must overrule the law of 
taste.” If Chicago felt that way, it may be imagined how 
Boston and Philadelphia felt. 


22 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Scribner’s Magazine “broke the ice,” about 1870. In 
1868 Harper's Magazine was still refusing advertise- 
ments; in fact, even in the early seventies an offer of 
$18,000 for the last page of Harper’s for a year for a 
Howe Sewing Machine ad was refused. It was not until 
1882 that Harper’s yielded. 

Scribner’s in 1870 went out after advertising—the first 
magazine to make the innovation. It was only a year 
after George P. Rowell had begun—in 1869—to publish 
the first directory of newspapers and periodicals, and had 
set himself up as an advertising agent. 

It is significant that the average span of life in the 
U.S. in 1870, when magazines first accepted advertising, 
was only 45 years, whereas to-day it is 58. Who could 
deny that the astounding spread, since 1870, of ideas of 
sanitation and health, even to the rural districts, has been 
accomplished very largely through the advertising of 
sanitary and health-building merchandise, and the ideas 
printed and widely disseminated in the periodicals made 
possible by advertising patronage? 

The rapidity of growth of advertising is seen in the 
fact that twelve years after Harper's had opened its 
pages to advertising, it was carrying 144 pages, at a page 
rate of $250, or $36,000. ‘The six leading monthlies of 
December, 1894, according to a computation once made 
by F. W. Ayer, earned $180,000 worth of advertising. 
To-day the December issues of the six leading periodicals 
carry several millions of dollars worth of business. 


* * € *K *K *K > 


The period of American advertising, such as it was, 
from the Civil War almost to the end of the last cen- 
tury, was dominated largely by patent medicine adver- 
tisers. The only association of advertising men and 
advertisers was headed by and operated mainly in the in- 


J. George Frederick Zo 


terest of the outstanding patent medicines of the day. I 
well remember a blizzardy day in February, even as late 
as 1903, when I attended the convention of “national ad- 
vertisers’’ at Delmonico’s in New York—a hostelry now 
no more. ‘This convention was the only national group 
of ad men existing. Scarcely fifty people were present, 
and if I remember aright, Dr. Pierce presided. Yet even 
at the moment S. S. McClure was approaching the hey- 
day of his success with McClure’s Magazine, and the gen- 
eral magazine field was soon to attain its far wider im- 
portance in the advertising world. At that pivotal point 
there was only a handful of manufacturers who ad- 
vertised consistently. The acceptance of advertising as 
a matter-of-fact tool of industry was still ten years off. 
The movement to clean up advertising pages and outlaw 
the nostrums, which for almost a century had been 
crippling the prestige of advertising, was only a feeble 
voice in the wilderness. 

Advertising copy in the nineties was a matter of 
slogans, jingles, pictures, testimonial letters, appeals to 
fear, and the bare featuring of name and crude trade- 
mark. ‘Use Pear’s Soap” as an example of complete 
copy for an ad was still many firms’ idea of good adver- 
tising. Dependence by the patent medicine men was 
upon newspaper advertisements, bought by a sharp bar- 
gaining process at very low rates on contract; sign space 
upon fence and barn signs, and upon almanacs ealkedh were 
calculated to alarm you about your liver while you were 
looking up a date. I had worked in a newspaper com- 
posing room in those days, and some of the old “typos” 
regularly bought the patent medicine advertised in the 
copy they set up, so well did the advertiser calculate his 
copy appeal! 

Meantime, for some years, George P. Rowell, owner 
and editor of Printer’s Ink, had been serving as a mouth- 


24 Masters of Advertising Copy 


piece and a focal point for the nascent profession of ad- 
vertising, his pages carrying articles by the men who were 
then thinking out the problems of advertising. His pol- 
icy of wide, free distribution of Printer’s Ink resulted in 
planting the advertising idea in many places all over the 
country, and there began to take shape a body of mod- 
ernized ideas on advertising writing. 

At that time the livest advertising men, from a pro- 
gressive copy-writing point of view, were the department 
store advertising managers. Some of these, like Powers 
of John Wanamaker’s, were far-seeing and highly skil- 
ful, with a background of high-grade journalism. ‘They 
wrote about many kinds of merchandise in a manner quite 
unknown before. ‘They really described, adequately and 
with imagination, the goods they were selling. Few, if 
any, manufacturers were doing this in their general ad- 
vertising, being wedded to economy of space and the idea 
of very few words and little argument. 

Under the impetus of the Powers “‘school”’ of retail ad- 
vertising copy writers, whose ideas and ads were fre- 
quently set forth in Rowell’s Printer’s Ink, the enlarged 
conception of copy’s place in gogd advertising grew apace. 
The editor of this volume was one of this group—which 
included James H. Collins—of early writers in Printer’s 
Ink, before Mr. Rowell died. Very soon, the new copy 
ideas invaded the general advertising field. Charles Aus- 
tin Bates in New York, N. W. Ayer in Philadelphia and 
Lord & Thomas in Chicago, were the live advertising 
agencies applying modern ideas in copy. Bates began to 
publish a magazine, Current Advertising, with Leroy 
Fairman ridiculing the old-style copy. Lord & Thomas 
in Chicago published Judicious Advertising. Both maga- 
zines became propagandists of better copy ideas. A. D. 
Lasker, then a very young man, was made head of the 
Lord & Thomas agency, and he soon began a very de- 


J. George Frederick 25 


termined, aggressive campaign to revolutionize ideas in 
copy in the manufacturing field, by means of a phrase, 
“reason why” copy. John Kennedy and the editor of 
this book, as well as several others, were brought to Chi- 
cago to be leaders in this campaign, which is acknowl- 
edged to have been vital in the history of advertising. 
This ‘‘reason why” idea of copy was an epoch-making 
rebellion in copy writing from old standards, analogous to 
Martin Luther’s protestant rebellion in religion; it aimed 
at an appeal to reason and intelligence rather than the 
time-honored assumption that the public was a mass of 
dumb, driven sheep, who could be swayed with mere pic- 
ture-and-catch-word. 

This ten-year fight to estabush the ‘‘reason why”’ ideas 
in copy was finally won, because all intelligent men in ad- 
vertising joined hands with it; though, naturally, at the 
same time the original extreme position of its promul- 
gators was modified. ‘The editor of this volume well 
remembers the bitter debates of that period over copy, 
and remembers also his errors in emphasizing too much 
sheer reason and logic and over-long copy in advertising. 
The important accomplishment, aided by wide-awake ad- 
vertising men everywhere, was the coming of greater flex- 
ibility and life into advertising, more sincerity, more in- 
formation, more fact, more literature. Advertising 
changed from a museum of inert waxworks into a wonder- 
ful stage of living players who gave the public thrills and 
real values. Words had come into their own; copy was 
supreme. The manufacturers of standard high-grade 
merchandise began to use advertising as a vital sales tool 
—a natural consequence, because advertising brought re- 
turns. 

The historic fact is, furthermore, that American peri- 
odicals from that day forth blossomed also into life and 
wider usefulness. The “McClure’s” and “Everybody’s,” 


26 Masters of Advertising Copy 


magazines of important civic services to the country, 
spawned and grew upon the support of advertising. ‘The 
live, able newspapers of the country, the splendid trade 
and general periodicals serving their groups for greater 
education, took on the hue of health because of the twin 
service of advertising value which to this day makes it at 
least a matter of debate whether the advertising pages 
are not of equal service to subscribers, purely as reading 
matter, as the editorial pages themselves. Certainly the 
Dry Goods Economist, The Iron Age, The Engineering 
News, etc., would be very definitely less useful without 
their advertising, which are current technical news bulle- 
tins in themselves. Advertising copy became worth read- 
ing, began to furnish information, to bear a real relation 
to life, and to affect and stimulate thought, just as edi- 
torial pages are supposed to do. 


> * *K * * * * 


With the modernization of ideas about advertising 
copy and the consequent phenomenal increase in adver- 
tising came another problem, that of irresponsible, ob- 
jectionable advertising. Sentiment against patent medi- 
cine advertising had been forming slowly—Edward Bok 
of the Ladies Home Journal leading the fight,—and one. 
by one magazines rejected the nostrums living off the igno- 
rance and fears of the public. The idea gained currency 
that such advertising was decreasing the pulling power of 
sound commodity advertising; that public confidence in 
legitimate concerns was being injured by seeing their ad- 
vertising side by side with fraudulent, false advertising. 
The better type of newspapers, such as the New York 
Times and others, set up standards, and soon the entire 
advertising profession was centering attention on the sub- 
ject. The advertising clubs movement which had re- 
sulted in a national organization (at first a mere junket- 


J. George Frederick 27 


ing group) took up the cry and began a crusade with al- 
most religious fervor. For ten years this fight waged, 
vigilance committees being organized to take action, and 
legislative efforts undertaken to secure passage of the 
Printer’s Ink model statute against fraudulent and mis- 
leading advertising. To-day practically all states have 
adequate laws, and there exists a large and well-organ- 
ized machine, composed of the Better Business Bureaus, 
for the work not only of stamping out fraudulent adver- 
tising, but of offering constructive guidance in disputed 
or dubious matters of advertising representation. 

Meantime the technique of copy grew in vision and out- 
look as more and more money was used in application of 
the advertising method. Advertising became less a mere 
matter of copy and media and more a coordination of 
practical sales-management and the closer analysis of 
conditions of distribution and consumption. ‘‘Arm chair” 
copy-writing gave way to market survey-built copy. Intui- 
tive insight into the public mind began to be supplemented 
by research-backed judgments of consumer-reactions. Par- 
ticularly so after a period of five or six years of rather 
unsatisfactory flirting with the science of psychology as a 
guide to copy. A body of very valuable knowledge was 
turned up by the interest in psychology as it relates to ad- 
vertising, especially the contribution of Prof. H. L. Hol- 
lingsworth of Columbia University, and Walter Dill 
Scott, now President of Northwestern University. But 
the application of psychological knowledge was limited to 
those who could grasp the subject, and still further to 
those with minds able to apply its broad generalizations 
practically and wisely. ‘The need was so much greater 
for knowledge of practical economic factors in the field 
that more attention began to be paid to research, a factor 
now bulking very large and permanently in matters of 
copy preparation. 


28 Masters of Advertising Copy 


But it is true that advertising writing, like any other 
form of writing, must always, in the main, be instinctive 
and imaginative; very close to facts at the base, but 
tempered and planned with use of all the arts and sci- 
ences.. Literary art, psychological science, sociological 
insight, biological understanding, philosophical acumen, 
as well as the unlabeled and unchartered matter of knowl- 
edge of life and people,—all these enter into copy-writ- 
ing. An almost gnomic wisdom about the human be- 
ing,—his weaknesses, his perversities, his strengths and 
his habits,—are necessary in the copy writer, par excel- 
lence. It is, therefore, small wonder that among adver- 
tising writers are found men and women whose writing is 
as acceptable to the public in the form of articles and 
fiction as in the form of advertising, since writing of 
every kind must be based on interest, artistic perception 
and creative capacity. 


* 7K *K *K *K *K * 


Words, printed thoughts, are at the very zenith of 
power to-day. Even in ancient civilizations, Greek and 
Roman, it was chiefly orators, poets and writers who 
made men act. Oratory has dimmed in power only be- 
cause of its physical limitations: (which radio now has to 
some degree removed). The printed word, through the 
genius of the automatic printing press, has now an audi- 
ence of stupendous size, scope, flexibility and trained at- 
tention. It is literally the cement which connects the 
myriad bricks of humanity together in the structure we 
call civilization. A blackness comparable to night would 
settle down upon humanity if its printed word facilities 
were suddenly to become extinct. It would be a kind of 
mental death. A taste of it has been experienced by the 
intellectuals of Russia, who for a while remained almost 
completely without books, without paper and pencils, 


J. George Frederick 29 


without periodicals, without scientific monographs or even 
mail communication. 

The men with the prestige of genius, like Shaw, 
Wells, Conrad and others; the men who by ownership of 
periodicals of wide circulation, like Curtis, Hearst, or the 
late Lord Northcliffe; the men who because of their 
importance to humanity, like Lloyd George or the 
late Woodrow Wilson, and men who pay for space to say 
what they wish, like Campbell, Wrigley, Armour ;—all of 
these are word masters on a great scale and affect deeply 
the lives of millions. ‘To call one a writer and the other 
an advertiser; one a statesman and the other a seller of 
merchandise, is, after all, a very faint distinction without 
a fundamental difference. Each and all of them have 
aims, some practical, some ideal, which it is their mission 
to sell to the public; and whether for statesmanship of the 
highest order or for the business of providing soup and 
automobiles in large quantities at low prices, their prin- 
cipal task is the influencing of the minds of people in 
large numbers. ‘This is a profession inherently of the 
highest importance to society. The measure of all pub- 
lic men, as well as of business concerns, is the extent to 
which they can carry public opinion and responsive action 
with them for their ideas, and the extent to which these 
ideas increase the wealth and happiness of society. The 
advertiser need no more be afraid of this test than the 
statesman. 

* * * * * * * 

Copy is the soul of advertising. Picture and type may 
appeal to instincts, to the senses, but copy has no other 
entry-way into the reader except through his or her in- 
telligence. And yet copy is more potent perhaps than 
type or picture to reach, if desired, either instincts or 
senses, for language has power to create an infinitely 
greater variety of images, symbols and associations than 


30 Masters of Advertising Copy 


any other medium of communication. Copy is, therefore, 
a supreme consideration. 

Thanks to the higher ethical standards which have 
been evolved among the crafts of advertisers, publishers, 
newspapers and advertising writers—working as they 
must, to some degree, in unison—the integrity of the 
printed word is jealously guarded. There are no higher 
standards in statesmanship or journalism than those which 
prevail in advertising; and no profession, not even the 
medical profession, is so alert and maintains such exten- 
sive machinery for the elimination of misleading state- 
ments and the prosecution of fraudulent representation in 
print. The advertising profession is to-day on a parity, 
in ethics, with the journalistic profession as a whole; and 
it may be said with truth that it has actually been a pow- 
erful force in elevating the standards of journalism and 
periodical publishing. 

Why? Because of the broadly considered interests of 
advertisers who have attained their universal distribu- 
tion, lower price and greater public service through news- 
papers and magazines. ‘They are intensely concerned 
about the status with the public of periodicals, the pur- 
veyors of the printed word. Reader interest must be at 
its maximum—the printed word must hold the reader’s 
confidence as well as interest. The advertising word can- 
not be regarded as separate from the editorial word in 
its requirement of integrity, restraint and freedom from 
misrepresentation. 

The circulations of periodicals running into the mil- 
lions are frankly to-day the result of coalition of interest 
of advertiser and publisher, but on legitimate grounds 
of broadening the appeal of the printed word, both quan- 
titatively and qualitatively. The success of this purely 
commercial coalition, it must not be forgotten, has also 
had immense public significance. The end mutually 


J. George Frederick 31 


sought—that of more power to the printed word—is im- 
portant to every aim of civilization. It was to be ex- 
pected, therefore, that advertising and publicity men 
would be of great importance to England and America 
during the war. 

The advertising man, in a very real sense, is a publicist, 
and as long as it is the aim of the highest statesmanship in 
a society predominantly economic, to increase the per 
capita wealth and comfort and happiness of human be- 
ings, the advertising writer will be of practical impor- 
tance. He is a technician in popular education, with the 
full gamut of type, picture, color and large circulation, 
local or national, to use toward his ends. He can flash 
letters of fire forty feet high upon the night in the view 
of 700,000 people in the ‘White Light” district of Broad- 
way; he can indeed “‘sky-write’’ words upon the very blue 
of the heavens. He can put an argument for his prod- 
uct in the newspaper at the breakfast tables of most of the 
comfortable families in all the cities of the country in- 
side of twenty-four hours. He can now even flash across 
the continent an illustrated ad via radio. He can put a 
message in a single periodical which reaches practically 
every village and town in the whole of the United States 
and Canada—the readers ranging from a cow-puncher 
in a Montana log cabin to the millionaire at his library 
table in Tarrytown. He can, through special and techni- 
cal periodicals, talk to any group or type of people, from 
hair-dressers and undertakers to motion picture actresses. 
He can make the very rail fences along the farm roads 
speak to the passers-by; he can mass the one thousand and 
one methods of advertising into a concentrated volume 
of appeal which will make people absorb his thought as 
though through the air they breathe, and as naturally. 
He can localize his message as he pleases so that it may 
strategically develop weak market spots. Yet with all 


Sy Masters of Advertising Copy 


this mammoth technique, no advertiser can hope to pros- 
per for long if he has no fundamental good to offer the 
public; if he offends taste egregiously, if he cheats and 
skimps. 

* * * x * * * 

The tool of advertising is a prodigious one—so great 
that it constantly takes more gold than formerly to oc- 
cupy the position of the greatest advertiser. Six mil- 
lion dollars annual advertising expenditure buys William 
Wrigley an advertising predominance in 1924; in 1904 it 
would have bought a riotous superfluity of advertising, 
for at that time a million dollars a year was a stupendous, 
almost unprecedented expenditure. To-day it is but 
a small drop in the $1,200,000,000 annual advertising 
expenditure in the United States. 

It is important to show here, by means of figures, the 
growth of advertising, as an index to its industrial im- 
portance and productivity. In 1880 there probably was 
not more than $30,000,000 expended in advertising of all 
kinds. In 1890 I estimate that it rose to $80,000,000; in 
1900, to $200,000,000; in 1910, to $600,000,000; in 
1920, to $850,000,000, and in 1925 to $1,200,000,000. 
This represents a rate of growth few, if any, industries 
could show; and synchronizes perfectly with our general 
industrial development, except that in the years 1900 to 
I910 a particularly phenomenal growth took place; 
largely, I believe, because our conceptions of advertising 
copy changed in a revolutionary way during that decade. 
However, the growth between 1914 and 1924 was also 
great. In 1914 the volume of magazine advertising was 
$26,000,000, while in 1924 it had risen to $110,000,000. 

Because of this prodigious extent of advertising, one 
matter is to-day of great fundamental importance,—that 
of educating the American public to understand the eco- 
nomic function of advertising. Such education is essen- 


J. George Frederick 33 


tial not only for the consumers, but also for the retailers, 
since a research in a western state has disclosed that 75% 
of retailers are, as yet, unconvinced of the value of ad- 
vertising. These less progressive retailers—whose in- 
formation on any subject is limited—are, in many in- 
stances, for selfish reasons telling the public that adver- 
tised goods cost more, in order that they may persuade 
customers to buy goods of low quality and irresponsible 
manufacture, with a high percentage of profit to retailers. 
The public sees evidences of large advertising expendi- 
ture, but is not aware of the rearrangement of selling 
method which advertising represents, with a resulting 
lower unit sales cost on an increased volume not possible 
to secure, except through advertising. 

On top of this, we have the propaganda of radicals, 
malcontents, social theorists and the half-educated, who 
deliberately argue that advertising is ‘‘an economic 
waste’; that it ‘plays on human weakness’’; that the pub- 
lic should be shielded from the ‘‘wiles” of the advertis- 
ing writer. 

Such a thesis deserves to be analyzed, for advertising 
writers, like any modern professional men, wish to feel 
certain that they are rendering a public service; that their 
work is fundamentally sound. 

Years ago a brilliant New Yorker, William M. Ivins, 
aided and abetted by some choice spirits of the time, 
schemed out a plan “‘to test human credulity.”” The fa- 
mous Madame Blavatsky was the result—a fictitious, in- 
vented personality. The public was found to be gullible, 
all right; but gullible as Barnum had found it gullible; | 
that is, for the things it desired and enjoyed, and fairly 
quick to discover when it was being “‘bunked.”’ 

In 1924 the new President of the New York Stock Ex- 
change said that ‘‘the American investing public was the 
most gullible in the world.” In view of the three to five 


34 Masters of Advertising Copy 


billion dollars which it squanders annually on fake stocks, 
or optimistic, highly “‘chancy”’ stocks, this is perhaps not 
an over-statement. ‘This sum represents a good rate of 
interest on the total national annual income of sixty-five 
billion dollars; and represents about 10% interest on the 
total volume of purchases (thirty-five billion dollars) at 
all retail stores! In the face of such facts, we may rea- 
sonably admit as a fact that the American public is highly 
responsive; let us even say that it is ‘“‘susceptible.” Yet 
in all truth, with all its errors of judgment, now disap- 
pearing, it is a princely, fortunate foible, this American 
“susceptibility!” It has made the country; it has speeded 
up the wheels of progress, and it is largely responsible 
for the $3,000 per capita wealth of the people of these 
United States! Millions more are beating enviously at 
our gates, longing to robe themselves in this ermine man- 
tle of susceptibility! Some even pay their last dollar to 
be smuggled across the border into our Elysium of Gulli- 
bility! 

But, irony aside, it is important to look more closely 
at the point of view of those who seize upon this admitted 
fact of American susceptibility as a means of indicting 
advertising. This point of view pictures the American 
public as a timid, innocent mouse facing a very compli- 
cated, deadly trap. It believes you can really sell lunar 
green cheese if you hire the right advertising cleverness, 
write the subtle ‘‘ad.’’ You step up and pay your money 
and lo! the poor public is delivered into your lap. This 
same school of thought argues also that the advertisers 
are debauching the public, making bootblacks want Pack- 
ards, and nursemaids yearn for chaise lounges and pipe 
organs. The accusation is that advertising is moral ruin 
to many; and fosters false character standards. 

Is it really a crime, or is it a benefit, to stir up a new 
want in the breast of a human being? If we induce 


J. George Frederick 35 


Mary Jane to wear nothing but silk stockings, are we do- 
ing her a service or an injury? Beside this question the 
ancient raging controversies over the question whether 
woman had a soul or how many saints could dance on the 
point of a needle are mere nursery squabbles. It is really 
a lovely and an educative debate. ‘The conclusion— 
we of common sense know—is obvious; but the consid- 
erations you run into on the way toward it are fas- 
cinatingly stimulative. 

Take the statement of a college professor some time 
ago that the public is a mere puppet at the end of the ad- 
vertising writer’s string—that it is untrained and, there- 
fore, has no chance in the hands of the trained business 
people of the country, who systematically, recklessly, in- 
sidiously and diabolically labor not only to make people 
spend all their money, but actually to plunge them into 
debt. 

If endeavoring to sell silk stockings to any woman not 
possessed of a substantial bank account is a modern way 
of being a Barbary Coast buccaneer, then we should at 
least designate a black flag for such buccaneers to fly lest 
we mistake them for missionaries. If woman’s propen- 
sity to put her money in stockings is a menace to the 
country, by all means let us divest her of such pedal sin- 
fulness! But first it is only fair to make quite sure it is 
sinfulness and not beneficence. 

To be strictly logical the holders of the view that ad- 
vertising is a play on weakness must agree to shield people 
from the wiles of advertising lest they become extrava- 
gant. (You hear occasionally of a man who keeps the 
Sunday papers from his wife, because if she doesn’t see 
the ads she won’t go down town on Monday and “blow 
in’? so much!) In other words, the theory is, the less peo- 
ple know the fewer things they want. Advertising weak- 
ens character by temptation, is the argument. 


j 
ae 


36 Masters of Advertising Copy 


The contrary, however, is true: advertising tends, of 
psychological necessity, to strengthen character. ‘The 
lumberjack, coming to town after a winter’s enforced 
absence from merchandise (where it might be supposed 
that he acquired increased power of resistance to it), is 
notoriously the weakest of all prey to purchasing indis- 
cretion. He rarely has any money left after such a visit. 
His case is typical of all human beings under like circum- 
stances. Everybody supposes that Mary Jane will spend 
-less money if she does not see so many pretty things. Of 
course, she will not spend if, like the lumberjack shut up 
in his camp, she is given no opportunity. But it is pretty 
certain that she will not be happy—and what is an un- 
happy Mary Jane worth to anybody? Unless she is com- 
pelled to be a hermitess, she will more than make up for 
lost time when she gets her opportunity. The mail-order 
catalog is the proof of how isolated people will express 
themselves through merchandise, no matter at what dis- 
advantage. Every mail-order house can tell of pathetic 
letters from women without money, who have supped 
luxuriously at the fount of merchandise through the mail- 
order catalogs—which are admittedly the greatest ag- 
gregations of good advertising copy extant—and who 
sent along wonderfully selected imaginary orders. (Once 
when short of rations in the wilds, I, too, had great satis- 
faction making up a menu fit for a king from a dilapidated 
but well-written grocery catalog.) Any woman anywhere 
can spend ten thousand imaginary dollars far more glibly 
than she can earn one hundred real dollars. One-third 
of the country’s annual family purchases, by the way, are 
now made without seeing the merchandise first. 

The cure for weakness of character is certainly not to 
reduce either the making or showing or talking of mer- 
chandise, but is like the cure for inability to swim—put 
the subject into plenty of water and teach him intelligent 


J. George Frederick 37 


self-propulsion in it. The more at home he gets to be 
in plenty of water, the less he is likely to drown. 

The truth is that to-day there is far more thoughtful 
buying and far greater familiarity with merchandise, be- 
cause of greater exposure to advertising and weaker sus- 
ceptibility of character. There are few Simple Simons 
and Docile Doras, because an environment replete with 
all imaginable merchandise has compelled a toughening + 
and sophistication of mental and even moral fiber. Mary 
Jane can now actually walk past several hundred tempt- 
ing offers of merchandise, which good judgment indicates 
she should not buy, to one time that she succumbs to al- 
lurement. Think of the miles of marvelous shop win- 
dows we have to-day; brilliantly lighted, gorgeously dec- 
orated! Think of the automobile which brings even farm 
women far more frequently in contact with store win- 
dows! ‘Think of the huge quantities of advertising now 
put before people! There has been a forced develop- 
ment, in consequence, of the faculties of judgment and re- 
straint—also of the use of logic and fitness in making 
purchases—brought about largely by the ever-presence 
of advertising and the merchandise-laden environment. 
On the other hand, this merchandise-laden environment 
has had another extremely important economic effect— 
it has provided quicker recognition and adoption of a 
valuable piece of merchandise, even though it revolution- 
ized to a considerable degree habits of living, standards 
and methods, involving greater efficiency, increased health 
and other benefits. It is not always recalled that a trade- 
mark is just as handy a mark by which to identify. and 
avoid certain unsatisfactory merchandise, as it is to iden- 
tify and seek satisfactory merchandise. 

Merchandise is an indispensable servant of human na- 
ture, but a poor master; and the presence of such enor- ~ 
mous yarieties of goods compels the weakness or the 


38 Masters of Advertising Copy 


strength of human character to come forth. It is no 
crime to stimulate wants, but it is crime to misrepresent 
their value; and this crime is being made harder every 
year. Gullibility is a factor that apparently resides in- 
eradicably in human nature; but at the same time the 
proof that advertising does not feed on human gullibility 
lies in the fact that a child can buy Uneeda Biscuits or 
any of five hundred good standard articles as safely and 
as cheaply as your most veteran haggler. 


*K *K *K * *K *K >K 


In an age of increased sensitiveness to social responsi- 
bility, it is worth while for an advertising writer to ask, 
What is an advertising writer?—a creator, a waster, a 
parasite, or a constructive economist? He will be a bet- 
ter advertising man, more soundly grounded in his pro- 
fession if he faces this question clear-mindedly and with- 
out buncombe. Particularly so, since advertising has been 
and still is a selected point of attack on business by many 
people, including many professedly intelligent classes, 
writers, a few economists, and a not inconsiderable part 
of the public itself. Although some circles in advertising 
feel that such antagonism should be ignored, and aver 
that “‘advertising needs no defense,” still the truth re- 
mains that there is current an astonishing amount of mis- 
conception and misinformation about advertising. 

In a volume like this, and in an introductory review of 
the advertising idea such as this constitutes, it would, 
in the author’s opinion, be a mistake not to deal with it, 
at least in outline. 

One of the boldest expressions of the criticism of ad- 
vertising as a factor in economics is to the effect that the 
cost of advertising is paid by the public. Those who hold 
this view argue that advertising should be restricted to 
minimum by the public need, but even they admit that 


J. George Frederick 39 


no sane economist would advocate its complete abolish- 
ment. While making an obviously unsuccessful attack 
on the assertion of advertising men that advertising aids 
mass production which, in turn, produces lower prices, 
they must at the same time concede that the cheapest 
goods are the most widely advertised. 

Of course, the public pays the cost of advertising, as it 
has always paid the cost of all selling. The constantly 
overlooked fact is that selling expenditure of older days 
was unseen; it represented salesmen’s expense and other 
high cost methods of selling. Sales cost per unit of mer- 
chandise was far greater in older days than now. To-day 
the public sees the sales expenditure, in the form of pub- 
licly displayed, spectacular advertising. Because adver- 
tising comprises a considerable grand total in volume and 
bulks large in public consciousness, it is mistakenly re- 
garded as being an additional burden of selling cost, 
whereas, in truth, it is only an altered and more visible, 
but on the other hand, lower selling cost. If what is now 
spent for advertising were spent for salesmen, circulars 
to the trade, and old-time sales methods, nobody would 
be noticing it, or considering anything to be amiss—yet 
it would bulk to tremendously greater proportions in the 
attempt to accomplish the same results that advertising 
produces in the present era. 

The real documents in the case are the facts, open for 
all to see and verify, namely, that, as in the shoe, hosiery 
or men’s clothing industries, for instance, the rate of 
commission paid to salesmen by houses which do no adver- 
tising is from 7 to 10 or 12%; whereas the commission 
paid salesmen by houses which advertise, is from 2% to 
7%. With all this difference in commission rates, sales- 
men prefer to sell, even at the lower rate, the goods of 
the house which advertises, because they can sell a greater 
quantity with the same effort. 


40 Masters of Advertising Copy 


It is now a standard industrial policy in America for 
a concern actually to anticipate the reduction in cost which 
can be accomplished by mass production through the use 
of advertising, and to sell goods at so low a price as to 
represent a loss for a period of time, in full knowledge 
that good advertising will in time develop sales to the 
point of profit. While it is true that there are still some 
advertisers whose prices are higher than strict business 
economics call for, such advertisers merely leave un- 
guarded an entry way for competition, and in the end are 
pushed aside. It has happened many times. 

This brings us to what is the really vital relation of 
advertising writing to economics: 

Advertising 1s the only efficient tool available to ac- 
complish the much-needed purpose of raising the buying 
power and consumption standards of the world to the 
level of the rapidly mounting capacity for production. 
Just how serious a problem in world politics as well as in 
domestic prosperity this is, may be gathered from state- 
ments sometimes made that the endeavor to reach and 
maintain a high standard of living is now and ever has 
been the principal cause of wars between tribes and na- 
tions. Yet the equal truth is that nations and peoples 
always have, always should and always will struggle to 
elevate their standards of living. Critics of advertising 
fail to point out that wars usually result not from peace- 
ful production and consumption efforts, but from preda- 
tory efforts at seizure of other peoples’ goods and wealth. 
The modern principle is that of increased productivity 
and consumption keeping pace with each other through 
the use of advertising, so as to make a nation less depend- 
ent on predatory struggle with other peoples. ‘The high 
standards and comparatively peaceful career of the 
United States is the example par excellence. 

The famous English economist, John A. Hobson, made 


J. George Frederick 4] 


a very clear statement of the great need now all over the 
world for increasing living standards up to the level of 
production capacity: 


There is a universal belief in a limited market, 
the apparent inability of the business classes to sell 
at any profitable margin all the goods which can be 
made by the machinery and labor which they control. 
In other words, although production only exists to 
supply the needs of consumers, the rate of consump- 
tion habitually lags behind the rate of possible pro- 
duction, so that much actual and much more poten- 
tial producing power is wasted. Production in the 
great industries normally tends to outrun consump- 
tion. It is more difficult to sell than to buy. In 
other words, efficient demand is not quick enough, 
or full enough, to respond to increased productivity. 

This is why the theory of pitting productivity 
against better distribution, as a remedy for poverty 
and discontent is fallacious. Better distribution is 
essential to higher productivity. ‘That is why wage 
cuts, as means of lowering “‘costs,”’ are bad economy. 
For only by a more equal and equitable distribution 
of the product can we get either of two conditions 
that make higher productivity a feasible policy. 

Better distribution alone can insure the regular 
rise of stable standards of consumption to corre- 
spond with and keep pace with every increase of 
output. 


Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes and John Hays 
Hammond have also in speeches emphasized the need of 
raising the world’s standards of consumption. 

The fact is, that by advertising, and by advertising 
alone, can distribution and consumption be increased, its 
cost lowered, and all levels of the population educated 
in better standards of living. The remarkably even stand- 
ards prevailing in the United States—the highest stand- 


iy Masters of Advertising Copy 


ards in the world and in history—are a natural outcome 
of the far greater advertising activity here, Great Britain 
being about 30%, and the rest of the world 80% behind 
America in advertising expenditures. Altogether few 
people appreciate the fact that the United States is 
metropolitanized almost from edge to edge. The farm- 
er’s family, near Garden City, Kansas, has living stand- 
ards astonishingly like those of families in the large 
cities. ‘They have electricity, radio, ready-made clothes, 
the same foods; they read the same books, bathe in the 
same kind of bath-tubs, follow the same fashions, see 
the same movies, listen to the same jazz music, are ob- 
sessed with the same fads (like cross-word puzzles), and 
buy from the same chain stores almost identically the 
same merchandise. 

Before cynically condemning this as mere “‘standardi- 
zation,” one has only to contrast the peasants of France 
with the metropolitan families of Paris. There is an abys- 
mal difference between them, for the peasants still cling 
to ideas, practises and standards centuries old. ‘Their 
wants are very few, their consumption of merchandise 
per family astonishingly low, and their standards dis- 
tinctly below the modern par necessary for health, sani- 
tation and growth, to say nothing of comfort and enjoy- 
ment. America’s consumption standards have been 
shaped and developed by advertising as though with a 
gigantic tool having an enormous leverage; and it is this 
tool which must be relied upon for further distribution 
of goods in the U. S. as well as in foreign countries. 

The modern advertising writer is interweaving the 
story of advertising writing more and more with the 
story of the era of American industrial coming-of-age, 
not only in respect to its part in making quantity produc- 
tion possible, but also in respect to humanizing industry 
and aligning it with public service and public conscience. 


se a 


ORDS are the working tools of the advertis- 

V\ ing craft. They are not things to be picked 

up and handled by those who have not 
learned the trade. 

Unskilled hands that would shun the surgeon’s 
scalpel or the carver’s spoon-gouge sometimes make 
bold to seize these tools of advertising and ply them 
with abandon. Asa result, advertising is frequently 
scarred and blemished, when it might have revealed 
the beauty and symmetry of finished craftsmanship. 


T. HARRY THOMPSON. 


43 


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I 


Advertising Copy and the Writer 


FRANK IRVING FLETCHER (famous New York writer of 
retail advertising for leading specialty shops) describes himself 
characteristically thus: 


Born 1883, in Yorkshire, England. Baptized in the 
Episcopal Church and complete in all his members. Drifted 
into advertising in 191'1 and has regretted it every work- 
ing minute since. Owes what little progress he has made 
to the malignity of advertising agencies and the tropic 
growth of incompetence due to the present system of 
agency compensation. Has no friends in the advertising 
business, as he prefers to put his money on the horses, 


if wary 
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Advertising Copy and the Writer * 
By F. Irving Fletcher 


Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN: In a Brooklyn 
paper recently a Turkish Bath featured the following 
announcement: “‘Separate Department for Ladies except 
Saturday and Sunday Nights.’’ And I want to say for 
myself that I am available for business at almost any 
hour except 9.45 a.m., the hour assigned for this address. 
This is midnight for me, for it is my habit to write at 
night. Moreover, I don’t like talking at conventions. 
The last one I talked at was held in the McAlpin Hotel 
about three years ago and inside of two days I received 
three anonymous letters containing varying degrees of 
vilification. So I cut out speechmaking. I would rather 
write and be paid for it than talk and be flayed for it. 
Some people are so inured to the obscurity of a back seat 
that they resent anybody who aspires to a front pew. 
Yet it is manifestly unfair to regard any speaker as arro- 
gating to himself the airs of an oracle when as a matter 
of fact he would rather be relieved of the ordeal than 
go through with it. 

But if a speaker be at a disadvantage, it is nothing to 
the traditional troubles that have for twenty centuries 
afflicted those who write for a living. It is still pretty 

*(A “speech” before the assembled coterie of advertising experts, 
evolved by Mr. Fletcher, with typical whimsicality and charm, from 


an actual address some years ago at the Pennsylvania Hotel, New 
York City.) 


47 


48 Masters of Advertising Copy 


generally accepted that an artist or a writer is without 
honor in business, and we ourselves are largely respon- 
sible for it, for, however good we may be at selling other 
people’s wares, we still remain one of the most inefh- 
cient professions at selling our own. Now a poet may 
be an anachronism in a department store, but a good 
advertising man is at least as important as the shipping 
clerk. He must, however, be an advertising man and 
not a poet. Too many of us still wear long hair in our 
minds and that is something which even the Terminal 
Barber Shops are incompetent to cure. What I wanted 
to say is, that we shall have a much more robust and 
remunerative profession when we learn to sell copy and 
art and ideas like steel rails, instead of conducting our- 
selves like supplicants for alms. The medieval idea of 
procuring a patron still persists among some of us, when 
all that an advertising writer or an advertising artist 
needs to sell his wares is to borrow the methods of those 
he wants to sell them to. It is not necessary for any 
advertising man to approach an employer in the same 
fashion that he says his prayers. 

But I don’t want to be charged with the impropriety 
of trying to raise wages. Iam really not discussing that 
phase of the matter at all. A division on this issue would 
suffice to show that many of you are getting more than 
you are worth, while many of us are still underpaid! 
But after all, money isn’t everything in life—only about 
98%. What is uppermost in my mind is not our in- 
ability to sell ourselves, which is bad enough, but our 
inability to sell our ideas to those who buy our services. 
In nearly every instance that has come under my observa- 
tion in the past five years, the relationship between the 
advertiser and the advertising man hasbeen wrong. ‘The 
average advertising job has two phases. First, the adver- 
tising man gets the job and then his employer proceeds 


F, Irving Fletcher 49 


to take it away from him. I once, and only once, had 
an experience of this kind myself. He was a remote 
relative of the head of the house and his ability was 
also relative and remote. It should be added, in ex- 
tenuation, that his congenital malignity had recently 
been aggravated by the hysteria of a belated honeymoon. 
At any rate, he decided to prepare a Christmas adver- 
tisement, for which he stole the sampler idea of a promi- 
nent candy concern and then dragged in the Deity to sell 
Grand Rapids furniture and linoleums. Some people 
think they want an advertising man when all that they 
really want is an audience. 

There is, of course, a vast difference between being 
suppliant and being pliant. A tactful man can concede 
a comma and achieve a page. It is just as foolish and 
fatal for an advertising man to be overly stubborn as it 
is for him to surrender his individuality. Some months 
ago the advertising man for a client of mine sent me a 
booklet he had written and asked me to go over it. I 
deleted three paragraphs, but did not add or change a 
line of the remainder. It is always easy to improve 
another man’s work. But the revision did seem to be 
desirable. I sent it back and received a very peevish 
letter objecting to such liberal cutting. So I called him 
on the telephone and said: “Did you ever see Hamlet ?” 
He said: “Yes, what about it?’ I said: “Well, every 
time they play Hamlet they cut half of it out. And if 
Shakespeare can stand it, so can you.” Still another of 
our weaknesses is sensitiveness to criticism from those 
who cannot or do not write themselves. It is absurd 
to contend that those who cannot produce an advertise- 
ment are incompetent to condemn it. You might just as 
well say that a man has no right to condemn an omelette 
because he cannot lay eggs. Criticism, if it is at all intelli- 
gent, is an invaluable aid in avoiding it! And a wise man 


50 Masters of Advertising Copy 


really prefers it, for by catering to criticism he secures 
credit now and may escape censure later. 

Now, you are doubtless wondering what all this has 
to do with Individuality in Advertising. My contention 
is, that it has everything to do with it. We cannot 
achieve individuality in advertising until a man first 
achieves it for himself, that is, assuming that he has any 
to begin with. Granted that you and I have some ability 
in our work, two things remain by which that ability 
can bear fruit. One is that we shall learn both how to 
create ideas and how to defend them, and the other is, 
that the only way an employer can develop a good adver- 
tising man is to let him alone. ‘There are scores of good 
advertising men who, through their own pusillanimity, 
or intolerance higher up, or both, never get a chance to 
show what they can do. And there are scores of great 
advertisers continually scanning the horizon for new tal- 
ent, and overlooking what lies at hand in their own 
advertising departments. There is an Eastern legend 
of a man who sold his house to go in search of buried 
treasure, and the treasure was found in the garden by 
the man who bought the house. 

To come to Individuality in Advertising itself, that is, 
in the finished product, this is such a large assignment 
and is susceptible of so many interpretations, depending 
upon the thing to be advertised, that it is hardly a subject 
that can be bound by hard and fast rules. But nobody 
can scan the general run of advertising without feeling 
that much of it needs fresh air. There is too much talk 
about space and not enough thought about spaciousness. 
One cure for this is brevity which I will come to in a 
minute; and the other is, the need of a little different 
point of view as to white space. The common concep- 
tion of white space is that it is a waste of money, whereas 
it is a genuine investment. It is the first and chief means 


F. Irving Fletcher 51 


of giving dignity and character to a layout. That adver- 
tisement is quickest to arrest the eye which furnishes a 
rest for the eye, and there is nothing so restful and invit- 
ing, to employ a figure from an old English writer, as a 
rivulet of prose meandering through a wilderness of 
margin. 

Now, the advertiser says: ‘“That is very pretty, but 
you are spending my money.” ‘The answer is that white 
space does not involve money, but brevity. ‘There is a 
French proverb which says: “The surest way to be dull 
is to say it all.” It has also been observed that no souls 
are saved after fifteen minutes. See how the bubble of 
length is punctured with a phrase! ‘Take still another 
example: Youth is a blunder—manhood a struggle—old 
age aregret. There we have a scenario of life in eleven 
words, embracing the vicissitudes of existence from cradle 
to crepe, from diapers to death. Brevity really is not 
expensive to use, though it is expensive to buy because 
it is dificult to produce. The reformation can come 
from within, not from without. Everybody sees more of 
a woman when she is in an evening gown than when she 
wears a tailored suit. Though the distinction isn’t so 
marked as it used to be. ‘The need is to declaim less 
and to display more. And the less you say the more 
you need to say it effectively. And that means that it 
should be told with originality. People who condemn 
cleverness in advertising are those incompetent to pro- 
duce it. Which means that it is often condemned. 
White space and appropriate art and typography are 
after all only the clothes of an advertisement which make 
for individuality in appearance. ‘They are the frills and 
the furbelows, but the copy is the voice of the institution, 
which, indeed, if it have clarity, felicity, and strength, 
will, like Bacon’s reference to virtue, look best plain set. 


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II 


The Advertising Writer Who Is Bigger Than 
His Ad 


GerorcE Lewis Dyer. Born in Muscatine, Iowa, on October 
9g, 1869. As a boy was taken to Joliet, Ill., where he was edu- 
cated in public schools and worked in his father’s store. It was 
there that his native genius laid the foundation for his penetrating 
knowledge of people and of merchandise. About 1890 moved to 
Chicago, became Advertising Manager for The Fair, later devel- 
oped an advertising service bureau, and about 1893 joined Hart, 
Schaffner & Marx as Advertising Manager, where he created the 
art of modern clothing advertising. Joined Kirschbaum, Phila- 
delphia, about 1902. In 1907 formed the Arnold & Dyer Agency 
with Clarence K. Arnold. At Arnold’s death in 1909, the firm 
became The George L. Dyer Company, and in 1910 concentrated 
its staff and work in its New York office. Died June 24, 1921, 
when his interest in the company was taken over by a group of 
men who had been associated with him in carrying on the business. 

The chapter presented here is the only writing by him which 
has been discovered. It was rescued from oblivion through the 
courtesy of John Lee Mahin. 


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II 


The Advertising Writer Who Is Bigger Than 
His Ad 


By George L. Dyer 


New York lawyer was so uniformly successful. 
“Tl tell you,” he replied. ‘It’s because he is 
always bigger than his case.”’ 

Copy is a matter of extreme importance. It is so very 
important that it requires a broad man to prepare it. 
He should be “bigger than his case.” 

It is for this breadth of understanding and grasp of 
business conditions that I contend. An advertising writer 
should be bigger than his ad. Not, perhaps, to begin 
with; but he should not be content until he is master of 
it, till he can walk all around his proposition, go all over 
it and through it. 

To be a good advertising man is to be a good deal 
more than that term is popularly supposed to imply. 
However, it is not necessary to go to work in a shoe shop 
in order to handle shoe advertising successfully. There 
was a man who tried that once, and by the time he had 
learned the business he was as little fitted to advertise it 
as the head of the firm or the intelligent factory foreman. 
A sure way to lose receptivity and to kill initiative is to 
become saturated with the technicalities of the trade. 

The advertising man must think along broad lines. He 
must not lose his sense of the relation of his concern to 

55 


if ASKED an attorney the other day why a certain 


56 Masters of Advertising Copy 


the world. That is something the proprietors and man- 
agers themselves can never gauge. He should get out 
and away from business and mix with people; then come 
back and see his proposition in a new light. 

The advertising department is the human side of a 
business organization. 


When a man makes only a part of a thing, he doesn’t 
exercise the creative faculties. It is no longer a question 
of mind, but of manual dexterity. He loses his initiative. 
He depends more and more on others to do his thinking 
for him. 

The so-called advertising “‘expert’’ is often a writer 
of advertising and nothing else. The smaller and nar- 
rower he grows the more arrogant he becomes and the 
busier he is. He is peculiarly subject to the disease 
George Ade has defined as ‘‘Enlargiensis of the Coco.” 

It is fortunate if he is a general writer. Usually he is 
still further specialized as a booklet writer, a display 
writer, a writer of reading notices, etc. 

For all their pride of copy, the majority of men who 
write choppy, disconnected sentences for display an- 
nouncements are incapable of turning out an interesting 
or readable article for a newspaper or magazine. 

Give such a man as I have described the advertising 
responsibility of a business enterprise, and he gets into 
a corner and writes copy. He cannot give any of his 
time to special representatives or business men who call 
to see him and who would keep him in touch with the 
general field and broaden his horizon. 

He is too busy making buttonholes to understand the 
tailoring of the suit. 

It would seem that advertising has progressed more 
in other directions than in the preparation of copy. Ad- 
vertisers, at least some of them, have learned how to 


George L. Dyer 5/ 


follow up inquiries; how to buy space; how to nurse their 
investment; how to work special territory; to reorganize 
their business in conformity with their publicity; to work 
their sales department in harmony with their advertising. 
They are beginning to understand the moral effect of 
advertising on an industry. They are learning that ‘‘the 
best way to improve a business is to write about it.” 


Looking backward we realize that we have traveled 
a long way, but, all in all, our advancement is not such 
as to make us self-satisfied. A man should be judged, 
not by his achievement alone, but by the relation his 
achievement bears to his opportunity. The same is true 
of a business. The old advertiser did not have as hard 
a competition for the eye of the reader. He was in no 
danger of being swallowed up by the volume of adver- 
tising or obliterated by the strength of the copy next to 
his. ‘There is everything to-day to stimulate individu- 
ality. The very life of the announcement depends upon 
it. The price of space has increased enormously. In- 
terest in advertising is widespread and yet we find busi- 
ness men encountering the same old stumbling blocks and 
pitfalls. 

One coming fresh to the advertising problem to-day 
must surely benefit by the experience of those who have 
gone before. But each man is inclined to think his busi- 
ness a peculiar one. It may be suggested that the busy 
merchant or manufacturer is too close to his work to 
reason well about it; that he is too much absorbed in 
himself and the narrow world of his trade to gauge 
public sentiment or know how to appeal to the mass of 
his fellows. But whatever the shortcomings of other 
men and other races, the American business man is pre- 
pared to undertake all things with equal success and 
without previous education or special training. The only 


58 Masters of Advertising Copy 


reason he does not paint his own pictures, design his own 
house, conduct his own case in court or treat his own 
influenza is because his time is valuable, his mind is bur- 
dened with weighty things, and the doctor or lawyer, 
with proper coaching, can carry out his ideas almost as 
well as he could do it himself. 


There is no denying the fact that intelligent adver- 
tising is still the exception or that most of the large users 
of space go at it blindly, trying first one plan and then 
another until they chance upon a campaign that makes a 
hit. ‘They have great general faith in publicity as a 
‘good gamble,” but evidently little conception of it as 
an exact science. [hey do not yet understand it as a 
force to be directed with economy and precision. Most 
of them that stay at it long enough flounder into success 
but at an expense that is quite unnecessary. 

It is remarkable what has been done, what is still 
being done—without brains, without taste—by the sheer 
force of crude publicity, the brutal paying out of money 
for space. Better results could often be had for much 
less money. But some business men and most boards of 
directors would rather pay for space than for brains; it 
is more tangible, they understand it better. 

It is a step forward, I suppose, that these men have 
learned to buy space; perhaps some day they will learn 
how to fill it; how to nurse an appropriation and take 
full advantage of the investment. 


Manufacturers of food products are among the largest 
users of publicity in all its forms: newspapers, magazines, 
street cars, outdoor display, sample distribution, premium 
schemes and store demonstrations. 

There is no doubt that the food business in recent 
years has contributed largely to the volume as well as 
the progress of advertising; but if, without referring to 


George L. Dyer 59 


any of the periodicals, we try to set down a list of the 
various foods and something that has characterized the 
publicity of each one, we realize from our confused ideas 
that the work is more notable for its extent than for its 
individuality. 

The general impression is one of a rather high stand- 

ard of mediocrity with a leaning toward engraving-house 
illustration and what my friend Beauley of Chicago calls 
“Steamboat Renaissance.” 
. There is a happy irrelevancy in much of this work; 
the thought evidently being to separate the picture and 
the text by as wide a chasm as may be bridged by the 
reader’s imagination. 

We are shown waving fields of grain and told how, by 
a special arrangement with providence, heaven’s sun- 
beams are caught and imprisoned in Mr. Jones’ Break- 
fast Grits. 

The chef has been overworked for years. The idea is 
not bad, as suggesting the preparation of food for the 
table, but it is usually difficult to tell what is being cooked. 
He might be frying eggs, for all any one can find to the 
contrary. 

The old Quaker of Quaker Oats is well conceived and, 
by dint of repetition, has come to be a familiar friend. 
The recent “smile that won’t come off” is too evidently 
an imitation of the ‘Sunny Jim’ optimism. 


I have always questioned the practical selling power 
of the humorous grotesque in advertising. An appeal to 
the public’s sense of the ridiculous is not the best way to 
get its money, except on the vaudeville stage. 

To make a joke of an advertised article is to cheapen 
it and at least postpone the serious consideration that 
must precede a sale. Even those induced to try it lack 
confidence and ask for it in an apologetic manner. 


60 Masters of Advertising Copy 


I believe thoroughly in optimism as a necessary quality 
in salesmanship; whether over the counter, on the road, 
or by means of the printing-press. Cheerfulness and 
buoyancy inspire confidence in the buyer and open the 
avenues of receptivity. Optimism is one thing and the 
antics of a clown another. 

If the way to man’s heart is through his stomach, the 
food people are neglecting a great opportunity when 
they do not appeal directly to the reader’s eye and appe- 
tite by means of good copy. 

Some of the best and sanest work has been done for 
Shredded Wheat Biscuit in their illustrations of dainty 
and appetizing dishes prepared from their product. This 
appeals directly to the palate and suggests new recipes 
to the housewife. 

In many ways the strongest and most interesting work 
ever done for a cereal product is the advertising of the 
Postum Cereal Company—Grape Nuts and Cereal 
Coffee. It has an insistent note of personality,—the 
priceless quality in advertising. ‘There is character back 
of every line of it. 


A class of advertisers try to reach their goal by indirec- 
tion. They assume that any subject is of more interest 
than the facts about the goods they have to sell. 

For instance, a man wishes to advertise shoes. He 
prints a little romance telling how the heroine wins a 
husband by the grace of her advertised footwear. Then 
they go to live with the old folks and save enough money 
on the family shoes to pay off the mortgage on the farm. 

To a man in need of a new derby or the woman who 
wishes to buy gloves nothing is of such vital moment as 
the printed facts about the required article. The most 
interesting news in the world is news of the things we 
desire to buy. It affects us personally. It reaches our 


George L. Dyer 61 


vanity, our taste, our sense of luxury, our desire for hap- 
piness, and it touches our pocketbook. 

Tell the story of your goods believing that it is the 
most interesting thing in the world. Then perhaps you 
can make it so. 

Don’t try to sneak the facts about your business into 
the public consciousness by a surreptitious hypodermic 
injection. Come out with them face to face. Tell the 
people what you’ve got, why you can serve them, what 
it costs and ask for their trade. 

Advertising is news. 


It will be a great day for advertising when men see it 
in a large way and stop taking a part of it for the whole. 
When they understand that the vital parts of advertising 
are the things that go with it and that advertising is a 
moral force and not a mechanical toy. 

Rule twisting and type sticking and stamp licking and 
space measuring all have their place and their value. I 
do not depreciate them when I say that they should not 
be permitted to obscure the view. 

Mechanical details have a great fascination for most 
minds, especially the mathematical American mind. The 
average business imagination does not rise much higher 
than it can travel in a passenger elevator. 

An increasing number of men refuse to believe in all 
but the things they can touch and see, and it is perhaps 
natural they should dwell upon the material, obvious 
aspects of the subject and miss the soul in the machine. 

Advertisers pay for space, buy cuts and copy, set the 
wheels in motion and stand by to see them run. If the 
things desired do not promptly happen it is plainly the 
fault of the agent or publisher, and they begin to tear 
things to pieces like a child that wrecks a toy because 
he lacks the intelligence to make it work. 


62 Masters of Advertising Copy 


It may seem that I dwell with tiresome iteration upon 
this phase of the subject. But there is not a week in the 
year when some business man does not get me in a corner 
and pour out his woes—thousands of dollars spent and 
no adequate results. Best media, good copy perhaps, 
and replies—but no effect on the business. Selling ex- 
penses only increased by the addition of the advertising 
appropriation. Salesmen squeezing the house and sac- 
rificing everything to their customers. High anticipa- 
tions, great fun and excitement at first, but the novelty 
is wearing off. 

What shall he do? Discharge his advertising man? 
Change his agent and quit the publishers? A friend has 
told him to spend his money in the street cars. 

Then follows a long cross-examination as to the gen- 
eral conduct of the business. ~The man grows reticent 
and suspicious at deep, researching questions he considers 
utterly irrelevant. He listens absently and says, ‘“Now 
to get back to advertising.’ When he is told that all 
this is the advertising, he does not comprehend. 

A man in‘an allied line told me the other day that he 
was conducting a campaign by using all of my literature, 
worked over for his business. When I said that I con- 
sidered the best part of my value was in work which he 
did not see, he was at a loss whether to distrust me or 
to resent being cheated out of his just dues. 

We need less tinkering in advertising and more use of 
the merchandising brain which builds copy on the well- 
engineered steel framework of field facts. 


III 
Human Abpeals in Copy 


Bruce Barton. Popular writer and advertising agent, New 
York. Born Tennessee 1886. Editor Home Herald, House- 
keeper and Every Week. Assistant sales-manager P. F. Collier 
& Son, and now president Barton, Durstine & Osborn. Writer 
for many well known magazines. Author of It’s a Good Old 
W orld, What Shall It Profit a Man, The Man Nobody Knows, 
etc. 


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Human Appeals in Copy 
By Bruce Barton 


interest” in advertising copy was when I was 

twelve years old. I read an advertisement 
headed, ‘‘You, too, can become a locomotive engineer.”’ 
I clipped a coupon. As it promised, I received the litera- 
ture, and, as was not promised, I received an urbane and 
persuasive representative who fixed me more than ever 
in the determination to follow that fascinating walk of 
life. 

My second contact was when I was assistant general 
sales-manager of a large concern selling books. We had 
been running advertisements on our leader, which was 
Dr. Eliot’s set of books. 

The advertising was very well written. It was full 
pages on the value of owning fine books and on the 
splendor of having them in your library and the satisfac- 
tion of reading them. I used to protest to the people 
who prepared the advertising. I said, “I realize I am 
young and underpaid and have not very good ideas about 
these things. I don’t like to criticize, but these adver- 
tisements do not bring coupons.” 

One day I was sitting there in my office, and someone 
came in and said, ‘‘There is a quarter-page vacant in our 
magazine and you can have it at a low rate to advertise 
your books if you will get copy to us right away.” I 

65 


M Y first contact with what might be called “human 


66 Masters of Advertising Copy 


leafed the books through and came to a picture of Marie 
Antoinette. I wrote something like this: 


This is Marie Antoinette riding to her death. 

Have you ever read her tragic story? 

In all literature there are only a few great tragedies, 
great poems and great essays, biographies, etc. 

If you know those, you are well read, and if you don’t 
know them, you are not. 


Eight Times As Many Coupons From Humanized Copy 


It was short and simple. But this is the interesting 
fact. Marie riding to her death on that quarter of a 
page pulled eight times as many coupons as we had ever 
got from one of these fine, full pages on the glory and 
splendor of owning fine books. 

It was my first vivid lesson that a little touch of human 
interest, a little of the common tragedy or hope or love 
or success or affection that runs through all our lives will 
outpull what may be technically a very much better adver- 
tisement, but which lacks that human touch which makes 
the whole world kin. 


Writers Must Be Human First 


If anybody should ask me how he can get more human 
touch into his copy or equip himself to become a human 
interest writer of copy, I don’t think I could answer. I 
might say two rather obvious things: First of all, it has 
been said, “If you would have friends, you must show 
yourself friendly,” and I might say, ‘‘If you would write 
human interest copy, you have to work quite consistently 
at the job of being a human being.” I mean you have to 
share the emotions, the experiences, the problems and 


Bruce Barton 67 


hopes that are the common lot of the people to whom 
you write. 

I once had to talk before a university class about writ- 
ing short stories. I was editing a magazine at that time. 
I said, “If a writer is going to be successful he should 
share the common experiences of the people for whom he 
writes. Writers should get married; writers should have 
children; if they are unfortunate enough to have wealthy 
parents, they ought to refuse to have any help from their 
parents; they should pay for a home, take out insurance, 
have disappointments, struggles, hopes, ambitions, fears, 
take on the mold and character of the people whom they 
address, and, living their lives, be able to interpret to 
them their own thoughts.” That is pretty obvious, but it 
seems to me essential. In our offices, we are somewhat 
removed from the struggles and experiences of common 
life, and we must work to keep our contacts keen and 
fresh. That, I think, is the first thing. 


Know Spirits of Other Ages 


The second thing, which is equally obvious, is that the 
little age in which we live is merely a drop in the great 
river of eternity, and we can very much extend our con- 
tacts if we admit to the circle of our friendships the 
great spirits that have lived in other times. 

I got to reading biographies when I was in high school 
and have continued ever since. For those of us who are 
writing and seeking to influence human minds, there is a 
wealth of help in this contact with the great human beings 
of other ages. 

They have a funny story in our office to the effect that 
when we take a man in to write advertising copy, I give 
him a copy of the New Testament. That is untrue 
(factually and by implication)—factually, because I 


68 Masters of Advertising Copy 


never gave anybody a New Testament, and by implica- 
tion because it implies that I have a pious soul, which is 
not true. No man can have a pious soul who has spent 
his life dealing with printers. 


Parables Exemplify Three Principles of Good Copy 


I think that three of the best principles of copy writing 
are exemplified perfectly in the New Testament parables. 


First—Brevity 


There is hardly a single wasted word inthem. Brevity 
in our business is a precious jewel. 

About sixty years ago two men spoke at Gettysburg; 
one man spoke for two hours. I suppose there is not 
any one who could quote a single word of that oration. 
The other man spoke about three hundred words, and 
that address has become a part of the school training of 
almost every child. There have been thousands of 
prayers in the world, but the only one a great many 
people ever learned is sixty-seven words long. There 
have been many poems written, but probably the greatest 
poem, the one that has impressed the largest number of 
people, the Twenty-third Psalm, is only one hundred and 
seventeen words long. So the parables were short and 
human and that is why they have lived. 


Second—Simplicity 


In the second place, they were simple. Consider their 
phraseology for a minute. ‘A certain man had two 
sons’; ‘‘A man built his house upon the sand”; ‘‘A cer- 
tain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho”; etc. 
No _ three-syllable words; practically all one-syllable 
words. ‘Tom Paine once said that no religion could be 


Bruce Barton 69 


true if it had anything in it that would offend the sensi- 
bilities of a little child. I think it might be said, no adver- 
tisement is great that has anything that can’t be under- 
stood by a child of intelligence. Certainly all the great 
things in life are one-syllable things—child, home, wife, 
fear, faith, love, God. The greater the thought we have 
to express, the more likely we are to find simple words. 


Third—Sincerity 


The third thing about the parables—those great 
human interest advertisements—is, of course, their gen- 
uineness. Emerson said, ‘‘What you are speaks so 
loudly that people can’t hear what you say.” Of course, 
one of the greatest principles of effective writing is to 
believe yourself what you are trying to make others 
believe. 

Somebody asked me in that same course I was giving 
at the University, ‘“What do you think is the first require- 
ment for success in advertising ?”’ I said, ‘“‘Good health.” 
That is nothing to laugh about. I can’t conceive how a 
dyspeptic could write good mince-meat copy or a man 
with rheumatism could write about the joy of riding over 
mountain roads in an automobile. You have to have 
good human equipment to enjoy the things you are trying 
to sell or you can’t make other people enjoy them. I 
believe the public has a sixth sense of detecting insincerity, 
and we run a tremendous risk if we try to make other 
people believe in something we don’t believe in. Some- 
how our sin will find us out. 


Business Is Emphasizing Ideals 


I think that in our lifetime we are going to see three 
very interesting advertising developments in three very _ 
great fields of human interest. In the first place, in busi- 


70 Masters of Advertising Copy 


ness. I believe that, without lessening at all the emphasis 
on products, business is going to give more and more 
emphasis to its ideals. Here is a very interesting story. 
Napoleon after he was beaten at Waterloo went to Paris. 
He was standing in his palace, the windows were open, 
and a few of his old supporters were around him—a 
pathetic remnant of those who once hailed him. Out- 
side, the people in the streets cried out his name and 
called upon him to form them into a new army and 
march once more against his foes. Napoleon heard them 
in amazement. He turned to his followers and said, 
‘‘Why should they cheer me? What have I ever done 
for them? I found them poor, I leave them poor.” 
That is the tragic epitaph of almost every demagogue 
from the days of the Pharaohs down—the epitaph of the 
self-appointed and self-proclaimed friends of the people, 
who fill the people with promises and leave them nothing. 
Contrasted with those noisy and self-proclaimed friends 
of the people, what is the record of modern business ? 
It does not find the people poor and leave them poor. 
The General Electric Company and the Western Electric 
Company find the people in darkness and leave them in 
light; the American Radiator finds them cold and leaves 
them warm; International Harvester finds them bending 
over their sickles the way their grandfathers did and 
leaves them riding triumphantly over their fields. ‘The 
automobile companies find a man shackled to his front 
porch and with no horizon beyond his own door yard and 
they broaden his horizon and make him in travel the 
equal of a king. 
I say business is the real friend of the people, and the 
time is coming more and more when big business must 
\In its advertising show its friendliness. I don’t want to 
enlarge on that. You can do that for yourselves. As 
that spirit in advertising develops it is going to have an 


Bruce Barton 71 


immeasurable influence upon the ideals and practises of 
business itself. For a man who drinks too much to sign 
a pledge when he is absolutely alone, is a very different 
thing from standing up before a room full of people and 
signing it. The first is a personal and individual matter 
and may not stick, but the other enlists the whole com- 
munity as a witness and strengthens by that much the 
vigor of his own resolve. Similarly it is one thing for a 
company to say, ‘‘We will conduct our affairs the best we 
can.” That is different from a business coming out in 
full pages and daring to proclaim the ideals and service 
for which it stands. That has a tremendous effect on the 
men who pay for it and on the men who work for the 
men who pay for it. 

There is a very big concern for which I am privileged 
to prepare advertising. One of the officers said, ‘“‘I think 
you are going too far. Here you have an advertisement 
that tells what a wonderful company we are, and one of 
our dealers just brought it in and showed it to me and 
said, ‘I see you pay $7,500 to tell what a wonderful com- 
pany you are, and I want to say that has not been my 
experience with you at all.’”’ The officer said, “Don’t 
you think we should tone this stuff down?” I said to him, 
“Don’t ask us to tone that down. That advertising 
ought always to be out in front and not lagging behind. 
It ought to be something for you to live up to. Don’t 
you ask us to come back and march with you. Go and - 
make that company the kind of company we are telling 
people it is.” 


Business the Operation of Divine Purpose 


We advertising men understand, and the business men 
for whom we work are more and more understanding, 
that the millennium, if it is ever coming, is coming 


= 


72 Masters of Advertising Copy 


through the larger service of business, because business 
is nothing more nor less than the machinery Almighty 
God has set up for feeding, housing and transporting the 
human race. As that understanding comes into the 
offices of our great institutions, advertising is going to 
take on a finer note than it has had before. 

The second development which I expect is this: I 
believe we are going to live to see ,the doctors, the 
American medical associations, as national advertisers. 
I was dining one night in New York with the president 
of a bank and a prominent physician. It was at a time 
when they were closing up the ‘“‘bucket shops.” I said 
to the banker, “You are partly responsible for those 
bucket shops,’’ and I said to the doctor, ‘‘Of course, you 
are partly responsible for the quacks.” They looked 
rather aggrieved and I continued, ‘‘The greatest educa- 
tional force in modern life is advertising; and any pro- 
fession or trade that abandons that great force to the 
use of the charlatans and quacks in its own ranks is 
absolutely deficient in its sense of public duty.” 

I had an interesting talk with a country doctor and I 
wrote a piece that appeared anonymously as coming from 
a country doctor. I said to this country doctor, ‘“There 
are five of you doctors in town; how much do you make ?” 
He said, ‘“T'wo are starving, and the other three are just 
barely getting along.”’ I said, “Is there any cooperation 
among you? You are in this noble enterprise of high 
ideals, ministering to the community. I suppose you 
work together?” 

He said, “Not on your life. I hardly dare to take a 
vacation, because I am afraid the other doctors will steal 
my customers.” I said, “If you would join together, 
spend a little money every week in advertising, if you 
would sell this community on the necessity of having an 
annual or semi-annual examination, if you would sell the 


Bruce Barton ‘AS 


community on the importance of having proper dental 
care in the schools and having regular health supervision 
of children in the schools, you would all make more 
money and the community would be immeasurably in 
your debt.” 

I believe that is going to come. We are going to see 
the medical forces of this country become national and 
local advertisers, to the financial benefit of themselves 
and to the health benefit of the whole country. 

And finally—this is my third hobby—I think we are 
going to see the church as a national advertiser. I hope 
no one will be shocked by that; certainly no one will be 
who has ever read the New Testament, because Jesus 
was, of course, the greatest of all advertisers. He spoke 
in the Synagogue occasionally because that was where the 
people were, but He did most of His speaking in the 
market place. 


Publications the Modern Market Place 


I said that one day to a group of Methodist preachers. 
They said, ‘“‘Do you mean we should go out and preach 
on the streets?” I said, ‘‘Not at all.” There is no 
modern market place comparable with the market place 
of the ancient cities. If a man stood in the market place 
of Jerusalem he touched all Jerusalem, because everybody 
went there some time through the day. You could stand 
at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue from now until 
you die and you would not touch a percentage of the 
people of New York. The modern market place is the 
New York Times, the Saturday Evening Post, the Cos- 
mopolitan Magazine, etc. They are the national market 
where thousands of merchants who have things to sell, 
meet millions of customers who want to buy, and there is 
the place where somehow or other the voice of religion 


74 Masters of Advertising Copy 


ought to make itself heard. It seems perfectly certain 
to me, as I read the New Testament, that Jesus, who was 
so exceedingly unorthodox in His own day, if He were 
here to-day, would raise His voice amid the thousands 
of voices proclaiming the merits of shoes, breads, ciga- 
rettes and motor cars, and say, ‘“‘What shall it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?” 
or “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” 


IV | 
The Underlying Principles of Good Copy 


THEODORE F. MacManus. Born in Buffalo, New York. 
Started as office boy at fifteen. Became city editor of a news- 
paper at sixteen ; managing editor at nineteen. He then became 
advertising manager of a department store, determined to learn 
the feared and hated intricacies of business. About to sign a 
contract a few years later for a large honorarium, he asked to 
be released, saying he felt sure his usefulness was declining, 
though it seemed to be at its fullest. Borrowing $500, he 
opened an office and went into the advertising business. In 
1917 was offered retainer in six figures to divide his time be- 
tween Chicago and Detroit, which he refused. In 1919 offered 
another six-figure guarantee per year for three years for 
handling one advertising account. Declined, because it in- 
volved giving up account with which he had lived from its 
inception. 

Became long ago acknowledged as leader of one of the two 
schools of American advertising. 


Mr. MacManus organized MacManus Incorporated in 1916. 


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IV 
The Underlying Principles of Good Copy 
By Theodore F. MacManus, LL.D. 


HE closest approach to finality of formula that can 
be attained in the preparation of advertising copy 
is, in my opinion, the development of a reasonably 

sound underlying principle. 

The application of the principle is, in the very nature 
of things, bound to vary with the nature of the purpose 
to be accomplished. 

There is always the danger that an able advertising 
man enamored of the felicity of his own style, will en- 
deavor to erect that style into a philosophy—claiming 
infallibility of result wherever and whenever it is applied. 

To maintain that certain clevernesses of approach, at- 
tack, and argument, will inevitably influence all human 
minds in equal or approximate measure, is, it seems to 
me, hazarding an undemonstrable assumption. 

It is a fact, however, that if advertising copy has 
attained any degree of definiteness whatever, it ,has been 
in those instances in which at least an attempt was made 
to reduce the process of molding minds in the mass to 
something approaching a formula. 


Two Types of Advertising Copy 


Speaking loosely, there have been and are in America 
only two types of copy analysis and prospectus which by 
77 


78 Masters of Advertising Copy 


any stretch of the imagination can be dignified by the 
name of definite philosophies. 

One of these two schools of advertising thought 
assumes in the mass-mind an almost invariable response 
to certain adroit and plausible appeals. 

The other holds the mass-mind in somewhat higher 
esteem but assumes a similar responsiveness to appeals 
of a substantial and more or less virtuous character. 

Putting it crudely and bluntly, the first is a clever and 
semi-scientific application of the thesis that all men are 
fools, while the second maintains that while men may be 
fools and sinners, they are everlastingly on the search 
for that which is good. 

Needless to say, both formulas have registered great 
successes because each is at least founded on a half-truth. 


The Human Mind the Key to the Copy Angle 


The very fact, however, that it is the human mind, in 
the last essence, which must be subjected to dissection 
before a formula can be evolved, indicates the hazard 
involved in any individual attempt to erect a formula 
even distantly assuming infallibility. 

The truth of the matter is, that any such attempt 
smacks of vanity and, therefore, of narrowness, and in 
some cases has its origin in a pure spirit of charlatanism. 

Nevertheless, definiteness, precision, system and 
reasonable assurance of results are the great desidera- 
tums in advertising, and the pursuit of them should 
never be abandoned. 

It is perfectly true that there are certain definite human 
impulses, motives and reactions which can reasonably be 
counted upon either in the individual or in the mass. 

It is likewise perfectly true that men and women do 


Theodore F. MacManus 79 


respond almost automatically to certain homely assaults 
upon their sensibilities. 

They respond also to the appeals of cupidity and cun- 
ning, and they are no doubt influenced by the over-em- 
phasis which is an integral part of the first of the two 
copy formulas described above. 


Truth Is Dramatic and Interesting 


My own contention is that the appeal of the ancient. 
verities is the more powerful, and that a business which 
successfully exerts it is more solidly and substantially 
built than any other possibly can be. 

It is a truism—and yet an important business fact— 
that we all hate the villain and love the hero, that we 
prefer virtue to vice and goodness to that which is mere- 
tricious. 

This, it seems to me, should be the grand central ani- 
mating thought in any effort to conquer a market. 

It is perfectly true that a market can be won for a good 
product by playing on the other and more ignoble sus- 
ceptibilities of the human mind and heart. But it has 
always appeared to me to be a waste of time and effort 
to offer that which is good by way of the circuitous route 
of being smart, or sharp, or clever, or adroit, when the 
other road is so much more direct. 

No matter who or what I am, if I can persuade any 
considerable group that I am honest and that my honesty 
is practically expressed in my business and in my product, 
I am in a fair way to build a substantial clientele. 

To find ways and means of inducing this tremendous 
confidence in people’s minds is quite another story, but 
to me at least, it is the one great thing to be achieved in 
business, beside which all others pale into insignificance. 


80 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Better to Suggest Than to Assert 


That is why I remarked in the opening paragraph that 
experience suggested to me that the closest approach pos- 
sible in advertising to a positive formula is the develop- 
ment of a sound underlying principle. 

Surely the principle referred to is sound, since it is 
based on known facts in human nature; and surely also 
its corollary—that all men are subject to suggestion—is 
equally sound. 

Working with these two root-thoughts in mind, it is 
possible to attain a surprising degree of sequence and 
system in advertising, from which an amazing volume of 
valuable confidence accrues. 

An appeal to the universal desire for goodness—which 
in business is merely another name for value—a simple 
and, if you please, apparently artless, way of phrasing 
that appeal—and if the market be national, a patience 
and persistence in advertising appearance which does not 
look to a single announcement to work a miracle,—these 
seem to me, after many years of experience, the safest 
and soundest of guides in defining and preparing adver- 
tising copy. 

Naturally, the special circumstances surrounding a case 
continually tempt one to depart from the root-principle. 


Copy More Important Than Size of Space 


If the study of sales is not kept continuously thoughtful 
and sincere, and based upon a knowledge not merely of 
men’s minds but of markets and essential economic facts, 
there comes the temptation, for instance, to conquer by 
sheer size and frequency of domination. 

It can be done; it has been done repeatedly; and is 
being done,—at a high and heavy cost perhaps, but a cost 


Theodore F. MacManus 81 


apparently warranted in some cases by the volume of 
profit and the scope of the market. 

To fly from this extreme to the opposite position of 
pretending to subject every announcement to the foot- 
rule of results in tenths-of-one-per cent is almost as vicious 
as the other. 


A Direct Check Not Always Possible 


A check on the advertising and the sales of certain 
sorts of products is easily possible; in other instances 
almost impossible. Moreover, the more niggardly man- 
ner of charting costs and results applied in certain 
instances might completely ignore a value accruing from 
advertising infinitely greater than cent-per-cent cost and 
return. 

It was once said of a certain long-continued program 
of advertising, that it put something into a certain motor 
car which was not built in the factory, and that that 
something has made the motor car property the most 
valuable of its class in the world. 

That was and is literally true. And yet by the cent- 
per-cent system of demanding that every advertisement 
deliver on the spot, that program was altogether de- 
ficient and unscientific. 

That something was reputation. The public knew but 
little regarding the details of the car and cared less. 
People did, however, know about the manufacturers. 
They were convinced of their honesty and sincerity. 
People bought the car because they trusted the manufac- 
turers. And they trusted the manufacturers because of 
the suggestive copy in the advertising. 

A number of years ago, I had the temerity to say toa 
great corporation that if a given formula or program was 
faithfully followed, I was prepared to promise that this 


82 Masters of Advertising Copy 


great business would pass out of the price class into the 
quality class. 

I named the company which it would oust from first 
position in the quality class and said that, if we all 
worked together, the transition would be complete within 
eighteen months. 

It was complete in less than a year—the business did 
pass out of the price class into the quality class, and the 
other business was ousted from its preferential position. 

In this instance again, public opinion was led and influ- 
enced by suggestive copy, which had for its purpose the 
creation of favorable public opinion. Within a year, the 
advertiser had the reputation for honesty, quality and 
sincerity, and naturally the public gave his product the 
preference. 


Copy Should Build Reputation,—for Reputation Alone 
Sells Goods Steadily 


I have predicated all my own work on the basic truth 
that people are susceptible to suggestion. We live, move 
and have our being in a swirl of suggestion, from morn- 
ing till night, and from the age of reason to the edge of 
the grave. 

One suggestion accepted by one person becomes his 
or her personal opinion. 

This personal opinion, accepted by a group of people, 
becomes the thing known as public opinion. 

A favorable public opinion concerning a man or a 
manufactured product becomes the thing known as repu- 
tation. 

Good reputation, in turn, is a thing that sells goods. 

I maintain that it is no more difficult to convey a sug- 
gestion to a multiplicity of minds than it is to one mind. 

If that much is granted, or if I can prove that it has 
been accomplished, we have established a very simple 


Theodore F. MacManus 83 


premise which carries in its train very astonishing results. 

If it is true that by printed propaganda, a favorable 
and friendly opinion can be generated in a multiplicity 
of minds, then it is equally true that we have found a 
hothouse in which a good reputation can be generated, 
as it were, over night. 

In other words, the thing for which men in the past 
have been willing to slave and toil for a lifetime, they 
can now set out to achieve with semi-scientific accuracy 
and assurance of success, in periods of months instead of 
years. 


The Real Copy Problem 


The most difficult of all requirements is a simplicity 
and artlessness of expression which will render it reason- 
ably certain that the suggestion when received will be 
accepted without resistance or resentment. 

The real suggestion to convey is that the man manu- 
facturing the product is an honest man, and that the 
product is an honest product, to be preferred above all 
others. 


Skill of Expression Needed 


Just as it is exceedingly difficult for a man to choose 
words which will convince a group of strangers of his 
honesty, so does it require an exceptional degree of skill 
in expression to convey the same suggestion in regard to 
a manufacturer and his product. 

No matter how difficult it may be, however, if it is 
possible of achievement, even by the expenditure of an 
infinite amount of effort and skill, it is, as I have said, 
a result almost priceless in value. 

It is priceless because the thing that really determines 
the life or death of such products as we have in mind— 
in the long run—is public opinion. 


“ 


84 Masters of Advertising Copy 


If a multiplicity of people can, by suggestion, be in- 
duced to approach the purchase of a product with a 
conviction of its honesty and goodness, they approach it 
with a preference and a predisposition in its favor. 

No state of mind which personal salesmanship can 
arouse in them is comparable—in its effect on the decision 
—with this self-induced opinion, formed as the result of 
the suggestions contained in the advertising copy. 


First Necessary to Determine What Thought Is to Be 
Floated 


The first necessity is that the advertising writer and 
the manufacturer should know and agree upon the 
thought that it is desired to generate in the public mind. 

The second is that those thoughts should be true 
thoughts, and reasonable thoughts, which constitute in 
themselves a reason why the product should be preferred. 

The big point of all this is that the root-idea or prin- 
ciple as expressed in the advertising not only influence and 
guide the public, but actually become the all-controlling 
policy of the advertiser and his organization. 

It comes, in time, to regulate their manufacturing and 
selling conduct. 

It influences and establishes their policies; regulates 
their correspondence; determines the degree of profit 
and the rate of discount; and affects the quality of their 
manufacturing. 

For it must be remembered that the manufacturer him- 
self reads the advertising and tries to live up to it by 
making his product and his service worthy of the thoughts 
the advertising expresses. 


How Advertising Copy Influences Salesmanship 


Advertising copy of the basic character that I have in 
mind is, of course, in no sense a mere selling expedient. 


Theodore F. MacManus 85 


Its object is to make sales quickly, of course, but not to 
sacrifice the institution for the sake of the immediate sale. 

Always the copy writer of this type must have in mind 
the idea that he must win confidence, establish good-will 
of a permanent character. 

Confidence in an institution is, after all, the only basis 
for buying the product. 

It is the only basis for permanent success. 

If it is built up rightly and soundly by the advertising 
writer, it will even tide the institution over a depression. 

It will lead the public even to forgive a temporarily 
poor product. 

It will do this because the copy is human—because it 
won friendships. 

It inspires loyalty. Establishes confidence. Wins 
friendship. And all of us make allowances for friends, 
so long as we are convinced of their sincerity. 

Over-emphasis, a too-obvious striving for effect, is 
dangerous. 

These are used, of course. You see them in copy 
every day. 

But their success is more apparent than real. 

In fact, the very success carries the germ of failure in 
it, because every sale made on such a basis leaves a bad 
taste and alienates the purchaser’s good-will. 

We can all of us point to some glittering advertising 
successes, which shortly become business failures, as the 
result of wrong advertising copy. 


Sound Copy the Basis of Permanent Success 


I do not know of a single instance in which, when in- 
telligently used, advertising copy has not made it possible 
for the advertiser to “‘cash in” a higher price, and a 
greater profit, than would have been possible without it. 


86 Masters of Advertising Copy 


The man who heads a business for which constructive 
advertising copy has built a public friendship is master of 
his public, though it is his public which has made him. 

They are subject to his product and his prices, because 
they are subject to their own conviction concerning the 
goodness of that product. 

The head of such a business, again, is master of his 
selling process, because the strength and dignity of his 
position makes his product desired, and the right to sell 
it a highly valued and most valuable franchise. 

He is at least partly safeguarded against one of the 
great wastes of modern merchandising—the mediocrity 
and inertia which mark the greater proportion of most 
salesmanship. 

For the customer, predisposed in favor of a product 
by his own mental processes, helps make a sale to him- 
self and fills up the gaps and flaws in the salesman’s 
technique from his own thoughts. 

Thus you see advertising copy of this type tries not to 
move a job-lot of goods, but to foster a friendship, a 
confidence and desire which lead the purchaser to buy 
the product. 

Therefore, it controls the market for that product, 
because it controls the thoughts which impel people to 
give the product the preference. 


Advertising Should Formulate Opinion 


The first duty of advertising, of course, is to get itself 
read. 

And, when read, it must leave something with the 
reader,—must help him formulate a _ predetermined 
opinion as to the goodness of the product. 

So all advertising that is worthy of the name must be 
prepared with the definite idea of producing a definite 


Theodore F. MacManus 87 


state of mind in millions of people, in a definite period 
of time. | 

If you do that, you won’t have to strain after sales,— 
for the public will buy. And because people buy as the 
result of their own convictions, they will continue to buy 
so long as the manufacturer continues to foster that good- 
will. 

Many companies have applied these fundamentals. 
Many have not. 

The volume of good-will controlled by the first group 
is in proportion to the thoroughness with which the prin- 
ciple has been applied. 

Have you ever figured why it is that some companies 
which were successful a comparatively few years ago, or 
some products which were sold everywhere, are now no 
longer heard of? 

The answer always 1s, ‘“They lost their public.” 

And they can come back only by winning their public 
again. 


How to Write Advertising Copy 


Think of your copy in terms of one individual. 

Think of one man or one woman. 

Think of a man sitting on the bank of a creek fishing 
for bull-heads. 

Think of the woman knitting or rocking, or busily 
bustling about a store. 

Think of that man’s thoughts. 

Think of that woman’s thoughts. 

Think of the remembrance of the product you are 
writing about flashing through their minds. 

Think of that momentary flash followed by a warm 
feeling of approval. 

It comes—it goes—but it has registered. 


88 Masters of Advertising Copy 


That friendly thought is stored away in the brain cells. 

It will rise to the surface when occasion arises. 

There is a predisposition there in favor of the product 
—a preference which may even amount to a prejudice. 

When you have gotten thus far, set your own mind at 
work. 

Ask yourself if it is possible to create such a state of 
mind in the individual. 

The answer is unmistakably and emphatically—yes, 
it is. 

How is it done? 

By suggestion. 

By endless and interesting iteration. 

Because people are human beings. 

Because they live, move and have their being under the 
influence of suggestion. 

Seldom are those suggestions systematic or scientific. 

The copy writer’s job is to determine the basic thought 
that he wishes to implant, and then to ring the charges 
on that thought until he literally creates a state of public 
conviction. 

What to write depends on the product, the institution, 
economic conditions, markets. 

The copy must be true and human and sincere. 

It must be reasonable, suggestive and interesting. 

The people will read it and accept it. 

They will even quote words and phrases from the 
advertising while telling you they do not read advertising. 

And they are sincere when they say it because sug- 
gestive advertising implants thoughts not by force but 
by infiltration. 

Its sole aim is to make a buyer think a predetermined 
thought, because what a man thinks he will do. 

That attitude of mind finally settles down into that 
priceless thing called reputation. 


Theodore F. MacManus 89 


And, while reputation may be intangible, it is real,— 
solid, concrete, definite and worth millions of real money. 

To create reputation is finally the only aim of adver- 
tising copy. 

Sales will then grow steadily as more people buy. 


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V 


Emotion and Style in Advertising Copy 


‘James WALLEN. Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, January 
8, 1885. Essays in Green Bay Gazette, correspondence for 
Milwaukee Sentinel, cream puffs for theatrical offerings were 
the first writings for which James Wallen was paid fees. From 
Wisconsin, Mr. Wallen journeyed to Philadelphia to join 
Percival K. Frowert Advertising Agency; later became closely 
associated with Elbert Hubbard in the capacity of secretary 
and advertising manager of The Philistine and The Fra. Mr. 
Wallen’s study is now in Fieldston, New York City. His chief 
interest is narrative advertising, that is, copy which has theme 
and sequence. Author: Cleveland’s Golden Story for Wm. 
Taylor Sons & Co. of Cleveland; Things that Live Forever 
for The Art Metal Construction Company of Jamestown; On 
the Fair Fingers of All Time for H. W. Beattie & Sons of 
Cleveland and a biography of Harry T. Ramsdell of Buffalo, 
The Hilltops of Fifty Years. 


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Emotion and Style in Advertising Copy 
By James Wallen 


T was a little known philosopher, Roannez, who 
I stated a great truth in tabloid, ‘“Reasons come after- 
ward, but at first a thing pleases or shocks me without 

my knowing the reason.” 

A few years ago I listened to possibly the first pre- 
sentation by Charles W. Mears, of the argument that 
advertising copy should be composed primarily of emo- 
tion and not logic. ‘This was during the era of “reason 
why” copy, and, therefore, Mr. Mears did a very daring, 
though useful, thing. He contended that emotion has a 
more universal appeal than sheer logic. In this Mr. 
Mears is supported by one of the world’s greatest novel- 
ists. Bulwer Lytton wrote: “Emotion, whether of ridi- 
cule, anger or sorrow, whether raised at a puppet show, 
a funeral or battle, is your grandest of levelers.”’ 

A brilliant but anonymous writer in the Atlantic 
Monthly likens the advertising writer to the poet and 
makes out his case. But to my mind, the advertising 
writer of the future will partake of the qualities of the 
novelist. Few advertising writers may attain the grace 
of Richard Le Gallienne, prose poet, but many will be 
able to approximate the style of, say, Rex Beach. 

In this discussion, I am not going to treat of the obvi- 
ously essential emotion in the advertising of fire extin- 
guishers, skid chains, revolvers and disinfectants, but of 

93 


94 Masters of Advertising Copy 


the feeling and sentiment in every-day wearing apparel, 
furniture and food. 

Promise is the essence of advertising. “To my mind, 
the greatest advertisement ever written is the 23rd 
Psalm of David. My first claim is that it is the most 
satisfying. My second consists of the fact that with this 
psalm you convince yourself, and to sell one-self is a 
great deal more difficult than to convince the other fellow. 
I take it that you know the 23rd Psalm: 


The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. 


He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 
He leadeth me beside the still waters. 


He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the 
paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. 


Yea, though I walk through the valley of the 
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou 
art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort 
me. 


Thou preparest a table before me in the presence 
of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with 
oil; my cup runneth over. 


Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all 
the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house 
of the Lord for ever. 


This psalm is all promise. It is undiluted emotion. 
It gives no reasons why, and yet, as Henry Beecher said, 
‘St has charmed more griefs to rest than all of the phi- 


James Wallen 95 


losophy of the world.’’ Most of the great consolations 
of the human heart do not particularize. 

Let us remember that man does not live by the bread 
of reason alone. He lives partly by the inspirational 
word. We speak of pictures as a power. They are not 
nearly as potent as a few words of consolation that have 
gone down the ages. ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall 
follow me all the days of my life.’ The mere affirmation 
couched in the language of faith without a shred of 
explanation suffices all of the needs of the average heart 
and mind. Now, here is the great secret of emotional 
writing. ‘There is reason back of it, but the machinery 
is not revealed. ‘The author finds that his thought is 
logical—that it analyzes, so he presents it. It is not 
necessary to print the formula on the glass of wine nor 
count the molecules in the pearl. JI am conscious of 
reasoning about emotion now and, in so doing, I open 
myself more to debate than if I wrote a song instead of 
a lecture. 

In advertising copy, we went through several stages 
from the card style to “reason why,” from ‘“‘reason why” 
to more or less exact description. Now the emotional 
appeal seems to be in high favor. It seems to me that it 
will remain, for, as Victor Hugo said, ‘‘emotion is always 
new.” There will be no need of changing, for we have 
struck the well of human feeling which never runs dry. 

Our fascinating but unknown friend of the Atlantic 
Monthly says: “In selling tea, we are not concerned with 
ugly, shriveled leaves which color hot water a yellowish 
brown, but with a cozy fire, the silver tea set, the mem- 
ory of a lovely woman, a thousand rich and beautiful ex- 
periences, haunting pictures of Japanese hillsides and 
sunshine.’”’ Remember that emotion is not ever violent. 
It does not always pulse with passion nor burn with 
fervor. It has the haunting quality of romance and may 


96 Masters of Advertising Copy 


be induced by a mere word, the master of English may 
intensify the feeling that underlies an entire sentence. 

I would refer you for example and guidance to the 
writers of novels rather than of advertising of the pres- 
ent for examples as to what advertising will be in the 
future. If you are called upon to prepare copy for a 
hotel, read Arnold Bennett’s praise of the American 
hotel. 


The great American hotel is a wondrous haven 
for the European who in Europe has only tasted 
comfort in his dreams. The calm orderliness of 
the bed-room floors, the adequacy of wardrobes and 
lamps, the reckless profusion of clean linen, that 
charming notice which one finds under one’s door in 
the morning, ‘You were called at seven-thirty, and 
answered,’ the fundamental principle that a bed- 
room without a bath-room is not a bed-room, the 
magic laundry which returns your effects duly 
starched in eight hours, the bells which are answered 
immediately, the thickness of the walls, the radiator 
in the elevator-shaft, the celestial invention of the 
floor-clerk,—I could catalogue the civilizing features 
of the American hotel for pages. But the great 
American hotel is a classic, and to praise it may 
seem inept. 


Now, what are the words that make this passage al- 
luring? ‘Haven,’ “reckless profusion,” ‘‘magic laun- 
dry,” “celestial invention,” “classic” are words charged 
more with emotion than logic. Ask any hotel proprietor, 
for instance, if he does allow a “reckless profusion of 
clean linen.” 

Read John Galsworthy’s description of a pair of boots 
in his story, “Quality.” 


James Wallen 97 


Besides, they were too beautiful—the pair of 
pumps, so inexpressibly slim, the patent leathers 
with cloth tops, making water come into one’s 
mouth, the tall brown riding boots with marvelous 
sooty glow, as if, though new, they had been worn 
a hundred years. Those pairs could only have been 
made by one who saw before him the Soul of the 
boots,—so truly were they prototypes incarnating 
the very spirit of all foot-gear. 


Here again some rather illogical groupings of words 
give vitality to the description—‘inexpressibly slim,” 
“marvelous sooty glow.”’ 

No writer on interior decoration listing facts, measure- 
ments and details could so comprehensibly describe a room 
as Frank Swinnerton, with a few simple but eloquent 
phrases, has done with the dining salon of a yacht in his 
novel, Nocturne. 


It seemed, partly because the ceiling was low, to 
be very spacious; the walls and ceiling were of a 
kind of dusky amber hue; a golden brown was 
everywhere the prevailing tint. The tiny curtains, 
the long settees into which one sank, the chairs, the 
shades of the mellow lights—all were of some 
variety of this delicate golden brown. In the 
middle of the cabin stood a square table; and on 
the table, arrayed on an exquisitely white table- 
cloth, was laid a wondrous meal. ‘The table was 
laid for two; candles with amber shades made silver 
shine and glasses glitter. Upon a fruit stand were 
peaches and nectarines; upon a tray she saw decan- 
ters; little dishes crowding the table bore mysterious 
things to eat such as Jenny had never before seen. 
Upon a side table stood other dishes, a tray bearing 
coffee cups and ingredients for the provision of 
coffee, curious silver boxes. Everywhere she saw 


98 Masters of Advertising Copy 


flowers similar to those which had been in the motor 
car. Under her feet was a carpet so thick that she 
felt her shoes must be hidden in its pile. And over 
all was this air of quiet expectancy which suggested 
that everything awaited her coming. 


This passage emphasizes one of the truest elements in 
advertising appeal. One does not sell an upholstered 
chair but really the depression made by the body as you 
settle into the chair. It is the effect, not the medium, we 
are selling. The contributor to the Atlantic Monthly 
says that you do not sell a man the tea, but the magic 
spell which is brewed nowhere else but in a tea-pot. 

What do you buy when you go to an antique dealer and 
acquire a decrepit old chair? Not the sensation of com- 
fort which you secure with the upholstered chair, but 
an even less material element—that of tradition, of by- 
gone association and historical legend. 

Personally, I have found the appeals to sentiment, am- 
bition, a sense of luxury, more compelling than reams of 
logic and pointed argument. The most effective adver- 
tisement in inquiries and interest in a series which I wrote 
for Berkey and Gay ran as follows: 


Mary Lamb wrote to her friend Barbara 
Betham, saying that her famous brother Charles 
could not write in a room not properly furnished. 

So with loving care she plenished a little study to 
his liking. This is but one of the historic examples 
of the influence of furnishings on mind and soul. 

It is the mission of Berkey and Gay to make beau- 
tiful, restful and gently inspirational furniture acces- 
sible to the many. 

Once you become the proud possessor of a piece 
bearing the shop-mark of Berkey and Gay, you will 
understand the abiding sentiment and truth in the 
phrase—“furniture for your children’s heirlooms.” 


James Wallen 99 


In the skilled advertising writer there is much of the 
historian, a good bit of the biographer, some of the 
scientist, an alloy of the philosopher, and more than an 
atom of the economist. In short, he is an editorial writer 
crossed by a tendency to produce a wholesome story. 

The skilled advertising writer, even though he is keen 
on readibility, consorts on good terms with truth. On 
this point I quote you Clayton Hamilton with regard to 
where the novelist stands in relation to truth. 


It is only in the vocabulary of very careless think- 
ers that the words “truth” and ‘“‘fiction” are re- 
garded as antithetic. A genuine antithesis subsists 
between the words “fact”? and “fiction,” but fact 
and truth are not synonymous. 

The novelist forsakes the realm of fact in order 
that he may better tell the truth, and lures the 
reader away from actualities in order to present him 
with realities. 


I think I can illustrate Mr. Hamilton’s point graphi- 
cally: A mattress is a very definite piece of furniture to 
the average mind. ‘The makers of the Sealy call their 
mattress, ‘“‘a pillow for the body.” It requires a lift of 
the mind from actuality to visualize what this mattress 
really is. i 

For popular interest and affection, I will stake soft, 
winsome Mary Pickford against all of the Dr. Mary 
Walkers in the world, useful as these women may be. 
Mary Pickford represents emotion intelligently directed. 
Mary Walker was intellect without the graces or arts. 

Even as Mr. Mears has proved, motor cars, things of 
steel, rubber, leather and other unyielding materials, may 
be sold through the sense of luxury and refinement. 
When it is necessary to show in an advertising illustra- 
tion the interior of a foundry, an artist like Everett Shinn 


100 Masters of Advertising Copy 


puts the wonderful miracle of industry into the picture 
rather than the hardships of labor as George Bellows 
might do. Persuasion is born of pleasant association. 

An advertisement should affect the reader with some 
of the glowing zest that the works of Fabre, the natural- 
ist, brought to Maurice Maeterlinck. If we inject just 
a trifle of this intense interest into our copy, the trite 
question of whether copy shall be brief or lengthy will 
not be raised. 


We take up at random one of these bulky vol- 
umes and naturally expect to find first of all the very 
learned and rather dry lists of names, the very fas- 
tidious and exceedingly quaint specifications of those 
huge, dusty graveyards of which all the entomolog- 
ical treatises that we have read so far seem almost 
wholly to consist. We, therefore, open the book 
without zest and without unreasonable expectations; 
and forthwith, from between the open leaves, there 
rises and unfolds itself, without hesitation, without 
interruption and almost without remission to the 
end of the four thousand pages, the most extraor- 
dinary or tragic fairy plays that it is possible for the 
imagination, not to create or conceive, but to admit 
and to acclimatize within itself. 


And by the way, the most effective passage in Maeter- 
linck’s “‘Chrysanthemums” is that in which he makes their 
blooming coincide with a human movement. 


They are, indeed, the most universal, the most 
diverse of flowers; but their diversity and surprises 
are, so to speak, concerted, like those of fashion, in 
I know not what arbitrary Edens. At the same 
moment, even as with silks, laces, jewels, and curls, 
a mysterious voice gives the pass-word in time and 
space; and docile as the most beautiful women, 


James Wallen 101 


simultaneously, in every country, in every latitude, 
the flowers obey the sacred decree. 


Now just a word of warning on humanizing copy. 
Next to being half-baked, the most serious thing that can 
happen to a roast is to be over-done. Someone has 
warned, ‘“‘Don’t get humaner than life,” like some of the 
underwear advertisements which exhibit all of the mem- 
bers of a family in the drawing room in negligee. Or 
the ads of a certain silverware in which language is used 
that only two people could possibly understand, the secret 
code of a single pair of lovers. Do not partake of the 
qualities of Joe Mitchell Chapple’s ‘Heart Throbs,” 
for while mellow may mean ripe, it may also imply a fur- 
ther stage in the life of the choicest verbal pippin. 

Do not strain too far for effect. George H. Daniels, 
the famous General Passenger Agent of the New York 
Central Railroad, used to employ the simile, “Like the 
dreams of fair women or the cars on the Twentieth Cen- 
tury Limited.”’ I suppose that Mr. Daniels’ only aim 
was to provoke a smile. 

There is a certain type of merriment which is fatal 
to your advertisement. There was a girl who pleaded 
in the divorce court that she had taught the complainant 
in the case ‘‘not to use bay rum.”’ This reform was her 
major argument for consideration. Doubtless she had 
rendered a great service, but she could not alter the 
judge’s decision for she had made him laugh right heartily. 
There are products and media which lend themselves to 
humor, but they are few, and caution is wisdom. 

Let me quote you a practical rule laid down by Sir 
Arthur Quiller-Couch to the students of Cambridge Uni- 
versity: 


Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a 
piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole- 


102 Masters of Advertising Copy 


heartedly—and delete it before sending your manu- 
script to press. Murder your Darlings. 


There are just five points that I desire to urge: 


First: That emotion or feeling is a most vital feature 
in advertising copy. 

Second: That to secure it use the methods of the nov- 

elist; study the ways of the fictioneer. 

Third: Reserve is the guardian of true emotion. As 
Elbert Hubbard has said: ‘‘Pack your pauses with 
emotion.” Pauses are simply a leaving out. In be- 
ing emotional also be reasonable. For common- 
sense is the mentor of sentiment. 

Fourth: Base your romance on facts. Know every- 
thing the shop, the store and the books can tell you 
about your wares. Create an atmosphere of authen- 
ticity. Surround your products with the aura of 
greatness. 

Fifth: Memorize the 23rd Psalm for the good of your 
art as well as your heart. 


The Copy Style 


And now as regards copy style. 

The perfect symbol of the epigram is the dewdrop. It 
has clarity, compression and isolation; it is transient, yet 
permanent; it is repeated a thousand times, thus prov- 
ing its essential truth. And in such a verbal dewdrop, 
John Galsworthy has defined style: ‘What is style, in its 
true and purest sense, save fidelity to idea and mood and 
perfect balance in the clothing of them?” ‘This definition 
applies with exactitude to advertising copy. The adver- 
tisement must be faithful to its central idea and be with- 
out flaw in the dressing and presentation of its theme. 
Whether the advertisment be in the minor chord or in 


James Wallen 103 


the grand manner, it is needful that it hold to its motif 
from initial letter to the last period. 

This, then, is the first requirement of style in an adver- 
tisement, but style implies some other meanings, as well. 
In fact, J. Middleton Murry draws three distinct defini- 
tions of the word style as applied to writing: ‘Style as 
a personal peculiarity; style as technique of expression; 
style as the highest achievement of literature.”’ The difh- 
culty attending these definitions is that they melt one into 
the other. 

When we speak of a certain writer’s style, we likely 
mean his peculiar characteristics. John Corbin once re- 
minded an actress who imitated Mrs. Fiske that the gyra- 
tions of the sibyl are not the secret of the sibyl’s inspira- 
tion. I think that these personal qualities are almost 
wholly a matter of inborn genius and should not concern 
one who is endeavoring to help others attain style in 
writing. One seems to have personal style or not. Orig- 
inality is the rarest gem and cannot be simulated. 

Artistically, [ am sure, there is no such thing as imi- 
tation. ‘There is only parody. When writing advertis- 
ing literature, profit by the example of others, but do not 
copy their peculiarities of style and construction. If you 
are a writer, a craftsman with words, you will have a style 
of your own. 

The imitations which make Cecilia Loftus famous are 
other characters seen through the camera of Miss Loftus. 
When the clever Cecilia imitates Mrs. Patrick Camp- 
bell, it is her interpretation of the other actress just as 
definitely as a photograph of a subject by Alfred Stieg- 
litz represents his own ideas of the model which will 
differ radically from those of Pirie MacDonald. Take, 
for example, Louis Untermeyer’s ‘Parodies of Poets.” 
They are neither imitations nor burlesque, as he himself 
has said. 


104 Masters of Advertising Copy 


During the years in which I was advertising manager 
for Elbert Hubbard’s publications I never attempted to 
follow the style of The Fra, though there were many 
copy writers under my direction, who did consciously and 
laboriously try to imitate the Sage of East Aurora. ‘They 
succeeded in being imitations only, unconvincing and as 
full of poses as a Greenwich Village model. Everyone 
who has tried to put on the mantle of The Fra, as a 
writer, has succeeded only in getting lost in its folds. 

There are words and arrangements of words which are 
native to one individual and foreign to another. In the 
discussion and vivisection of words, let us carry in mind 
this very vital fact. ‘There are elements of the expres- 
sion of thought for which you have an affinity and others 
with which you have only a speaking acquaintance. 

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch says that all literature is per- 
sonal and, therefore, various. One must learn all that 
he can of the best writers. Saturate yourself with their 
manners, then escape from them, go into the open and 
write out of your own heart and mind. 

Most people express themselves to-day in ready-to-use 
phrases. The writer must, of all people, avoid this fault. 
He must be a maker, rather than a mere retailer of 
phrases. The best way to test originality in a writer is 
to study his comments on a subject with which you are 
familiar and see if the author engages your interest. 
Then, in the same fashion, read the work of another 
writer on the same subject. This will give you a scale by 
which you can judge what you might possibly do with the 
same subject, influenced, perhaps, by other writers but 
still at variance with them as your own personality in- 
vests the topic. 

Originality is as elusive as a wood fawn; to endeavor 
to chart this phase of style is like trying to measure a 
certain bird’s song. ‘There are, however, a few points 


James Wallen 105 


about style as technique and style as manner, which de- 
serve discussion from an academic point of view. And 
even here Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch imagines that his 
pupils say about his lectures that ‘‘at the final doorway 
to the secret he turned his back and left us. Accuracy, 
propriety, perspicuity,—these we may achieve. But 
where has he helped us to write with beauty, charm and 
distinction; where has he given us rules for what is called 
style, having attained which an author may count himself 
set up in business?’ And Sir Arthur’s answer to his own 
question is, that style, for example, is not, cannot be ex- 
traneous ornament, and he quotes Cardinal Newman who 
says that “style is a thinking out into language.’ We 
are to conclude that when one has expressed fully that 
which is in his mind he has achieved style. 

Most people are truly inarticulate; the very thing that 
they cannot do is to put into language what they have 
in their minds. It was Cardinal Newman who told how 
the Oriental lover engages a professional writer to ex- 
press his emotions for him. “The man of words duly 
instructed, dips his pen of desire in the ink of devoted- 
ness and proceeds to spread it over the page of desola- 
tion.” This is exactly the position in which the adver- 
tising writer finds himself. He is speaking for someone 
other than himself. He is playing the Cyrano de Ber- 
gerac to the business Christian, with the public in the 
character of Roxane. If he were speaking for himself, 
the task might be easier. Having taken on the character 
of someone else, it is doubly difficult to achieve style. 

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch seems almost willing to leave 
style in writing on the plane of good manners. While I 
think that good manners are important in writing adver- 
tising, I feel that we should have something finer than 
good manners. We should have an impressive manner. 
We are even urged to write advertising as we talk. To 


106 Masters of Advertising Copy 


my mind this would be most unfortunate,—a most humili- 
ating concession. If most men would write as they talk, 
their letters would not be admissible to the United States 
mails. I contend that there is a conversational manner, 
a telephone manner, a platform manner and certainly a 
writing manner. 

I recall four advertisements from which I received 
a sense of style and fitness—“‘fidelity to the idea and mood 
and perfect balance in the clothing of them.” ‘These 
advertisements were: ‘Time and Chance,” by Elbert 
Hubbard, an exhortation for the Equitable Life; that 
famed “‘I Am the Printing Press,” written by Robert H. 
Davis; Frank Irving Fletcher’s “On the Wings of Morn- 
ing’ for Harrod’s of London; Bruce Barton’s ‘“The 
Years That the Locusts Have Eaten,” for the Alexander 
Hamilton Institute. These advertisements had the fervor 
of oratory, and it is a peculiar coincidence that they all 
savored of Biblical literature as if the writers had dipped 
their pens in the incense of the great Hebrew poets. No 
one can, however, deny that the Bible has commanded 
some influence in this world. 

If I had, however, to lay claim to having evolved a 
major advertisement, I would be willing to rest my laurels 
on the double page entitled ‘“The Black Pearl of Furs, 
Being the Saga of the Silver Fox,’ which appeared in 
Hearst’s International. I have evidence that this form 
of advertisement, in addition to making good reading, 
does produce returns. 

The advertising writer is a special pleader, and some 
of the quality of exhortation must be in his work. I am 
sure that style comes more spontaneously when one is 
filled to overflowing with his subject. The reason that 
Bourke Cochrane was persuasive as an orator was be- 
cause he had more of his subject in him that he could 
hold. When the mind is surcharged with a subject, it 


James Wallen 107 


becomes electric. When Daniel Webster made his 
deathless reply to Hayne, the accumulation of the knowl- 
edge of the years came to his assistance. Webster said 
of his oration: “‘The air around me seemed to be full of 
arguments; I had only to reach out and pull down a 
thunderbolt and hurl it at him.” Robert Louis Steven- 
son stated with clarity the only scheme by which a man 
may write without effort: 


When truth flows from a man, fittingly clothed in 
style and without conscious effort, it is because the 
effort has been made and the work practically com- 
pleted before he sat down to write. It is only out 
of fulness of thinking that expression drops perfect 
like a ripe fruit; and when Thoreau wrote so non- 
chalantly at his desk, it was because he had been 
vigorously active during his walk. For neither clear- 
ness, compression, nor beauty of language, come to 
any living creature till after a busy and a prolonged 
acquaintance with the subject on hand. Easy writers 
are those who, like Walter Scott, choose to remain 
contented with a less degree of perfection than is 
legitimately within the compass of their powers. 


The French formula for writing love letters—‘‘Begin 

ithout knowing what you are going to say, and end 
without knowing what you have said’’—cannot be ap- 
plied to the writing of advertising. 
* John P. Altgeld, the Illinois statesman who was one 
of America’s most moving orators, once spoke of the re- 
quirement of accuracy in all artistic effort: ‘‘Art does 
not admit of random touches. It demands entire ac- 
curacy. In music the singer is not permitted to be guided 
by his feelings in dropping or adding notes; the laws of 
harmony must be followed, and like fidelity is demanded 
in speech.” 


108 Masters of Advertising Copy 


The threatening danger in the lack of preparation is 
the committing of the sin of formlessness. Unless you 
have a plan, you are apt to wander all over your sub- 
ject, like a colt in a meadow, without direction. Your 
accumulation of data may prove your undoing unless you 
methodically arrange the stuff according to its sequence 
and importance. 

One of the most helpful of teachers is the Abbe Bau- 
tain, Vicar-General of the Sorbonne, who has written 
earnestly of the necessity for method in writing and speak- 


ing: 


The preparation of the plan of a discourse im- 
plies, before anything else, a knowledge of the things 
which you have to speak; but a general knowledge is 
not enough; you may have a great quantity of mate- 
rials, of documents and of information in your 
memory, and not be aware how to bring them to 
bear. It sometimes even happens that those who 
know most, or have most matter in their heads, are 
incapable of rightly conveying it. The overabun- 
dance of acquisition and words crushes the mind, and 
stifles it, just as the head is paralyzed by a too great 
determination of blood, or a lamp is extinguished 
by an excess of oil. 


You will note that the Abbe Bautain treats of this 
“overabundance of acquisition.” He tells you exactly 
why it is too heavy a load to carry. It is just knowledge 
badly distributed. 

When material is properly arranged, it becomes pli- 
able rather than unwieldy. It becomes better clay. It 
admits of higher craftsmanship. Lord Tennyson con- 
tended that ‘‘an artist should get his workmanship as 
good as he can, and make his work as perfect as possible. 


James Wallen 109 


A small vessel, built on fine lines, is likely to float fur- 
ther down the stream of time than a big craft.” 

I cannot emphasize too earnestly that when one has a 
poverty of ideas on a subject he cannot attain a great 
style. If one has a wealth of information he is free to 
take what he needs at the time of writing to express his 
idea and to leave the rest for another day. Because you 
have found a mine of data, there is no reason why you 
should garnish your copy with all of its gold. Restraint 
and reserve are the writer’s means of thrift. 

Eden Phillpotts has observed, ‘Nothing without a 
skeleton can endure. Some art is alive; some art is 
fossil; but everything that has lasted, was built on a skele- 
ton of form and modeled with the steel of stern selec- 
tive power.” Because you are called upon to write short 
copy is no reason why you should not have a heavy van- 
load of information. ‘This enables you to select the best 
for your brief presentation. 

The talk of an idle hour about being too near a sub- 
ject to write about it, receives no sympathy from me. 
The speaker in such a case has merely neglected to formu- 
late his understanding into usable shape. He needs what 
Professor Shaw calls ‘‘a cream separator for the brain.” 
The successful attitude toward a business or a product 
implies about the same qualities that make a happy mar- 
riage—a familiarity that breeds not contempt but ro- 
mance. Not everything you hear, see or read is grist for 
your copy mill—there is a lot of chaff. The result de- 
pends entirely upon the miller. 

The study of words is an important aid in the accom- 
plishment of an authentic style. However, the owner- 
ship of a copious vocabulary does not mean a writing 
style. You might empty before me a cask of gems and I 
would not be able to arrange even a few of them into an 
artistic pendant. Which words are slow and which are 


110 Masters of Advertising Copy 


fast in conveying ideas; words which humanize; those 
which form the North Pole and those which form the 
South Pole of your picture must be recognized on the 
instant of writing. 

I remember an announcement by Selznick Pictures 
which described Norma Talmadge as ‘“‘the lady of tre- 
mendous contrasts.” ‘‘Buttercups and orchids; spring 
water and champagne; tropical midnight and mountain 
sunrise; thrushes and peacocks; storm clouds and sun- 
shine.” This is skilful juggling, displaying the child of 
the field and the flower of an exotic civilization in chro- 
matic compositions of words. It is not high art, but it 
is loftier than the flights of most advertising writers. 

Copy style implies that one can determine the style of 
copy to be utilized in a certain advertisement at will. 
There are a great many things that set the style of an 
advertisement. ‘The first, of course, is the character of 
the product to be advertised; the environment in which 
the product is to be used; the media in which it is to be 
advertised. ‘The copy then must be faithful to these three 
elements. What Galsworthy defines in such exquisite 
English is known in advertising circles by a brassier ex- 
pression—‘‘slant.” To bring Galsworthy down to the 
terms which we use every day, an advertisement must be 
loyal to its slant. 

Mr. Murry has said that all style is artificial in the 
sense that all good style is achieved by artisans. We 
should all endeavor to become good artisans. The out- 
standing virtue is consistency—keeping to the Gals- 
worthy formula. It was Galvin McNabb, a San Fran- 
cisco attorney, who in a famous case warned the opposing 
counsel against ‘‘carrying a valentine into a cathedral.” 
I am not willing to grant that all advertisements are mere 
valentines. We advertising writers are privileged to 


James Wallen 111 


compose a new chapter of civilization. It is a great re- 
sponsibility to mold the daily lives of millions of our fel- 
low men, and I am persuaded that we are second only 
to statesmen and editors in power for good. 


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VI 


Some Lessons I Have Learned in Advertising 


CLaubE C. Hopkins started with Bissell Carpet Sweeper 
Co., Grand Rapids, Mich., and there first learned how to sell 
goods by letter. Went from there to become first advertising 
manager of Swift & Company, packers, Chicago. There, for 
several years, handled very large appropriation for that time. 
After various other adventures in advertising, joined Lord & 
Thomas. Was there for seventeen years and was President of 
Lord & Thomas for seven years. When Mr. Lasker returned 
from Washington and took his place as head of his agency, Mr. 
Hopkins started his own. Author of Scientific Advertising, 
which has been translated into numerous languages. 


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VI 


Some Lessons I Have Learned in Advertising 


By Claude C. Hopkins 


of twelve. Mother was left a widow so we had 

to join in supporting the family. One thing we 
did was to make a silver polish. We made it in cakes, 
wrapped it up nicely, and I went out to sell it after 
school. 

I found that when I met the housewife at the door and 
talked the polish to her I sold hardly to one home in ten. 
But when I got into the pantry and cleaned some of the 
silver I sold nine times in ten. 

That taught me to let products sell themselves. Since 
then I have probably given away more samples and free 
packages than any other man. I would no more think 
of starting an advertising campaign without samples than 
I would think of selling goods on the road without 
samples. Or as a house-to-house canvasser. 

But I later learned that giving unrequested samples of- 
ten does more harm than good. It cheapens the prod- 
uct, brings it into disrespect. So I never give samples ex- 
cept on request. I give them only to those who read my 
story and are interested enough to write. 

I often offer a full-size package, but never in a way 
to cheapen my product. I buy the package from the 
dealer and pay his price and profit. ‘There is a vast 
difference in the psychology. People find it hard to pay 


115 


M Y first lesson in advertising was learned as a boy 


116 Masters of Advertising Copy 


for a product which once was free. But buying the prod- 
uct and paying the price in order that one may try it im- 
presses the recipient. [he product must be excellent, 
else you never would do tha+ 


My next lesson in advertising was learned at the age of 
twenty. I was writing ads for numerous retail dealers. 
Aluminum ware was just coming into vogue. I special- 
ized on it because I felt that every home should have it, 
and few homes were supplied. 

I found that ads inviting women to an aluminum dis- 
play brought few responses and the cost was high. But 
when I offered a souvenir on a certain day I got quick 
action, and the saving in cost per visitor paid for the 
souvenir some twenty times over. I supplied that plan 
to aluminum dealers everywhere and thus made my first 
success in advertising. [hen I applied it to other lines, 
and developed in that way a large retail clientele. 

I have used that idea in countless lines since then. In- 
stead of saying to women “‘Come any time,”’ I set a cer- 
tain hour or day or week. I print in the ad a reminder 
for the woman to cut out. That is so she won’t forget. 
To insure inspection of my product I offer some gift or 
inducement. That reduces my cost per visitor. Thus I 
get prompt action and decision at minimum expense. 

Later I found that I could quadruple results by not 
telling what the souvenir was. Curiosity is a greater pull- 
ing factor than a gift. 


About the same time I learned another great lesson. 
That is, not to talk mechanics to a woman. I was sell- 
ing carpet sweepers, but not selling very many. Under 
pressure from the management I was talking broom ac- 
tion, cyco bearings, patent dumping devices, etc. Then I 


Claude C. Hopkins L7 


went out on the road with a sample sweeper and a bag of 
bran. I went into stores and showed women customers 
how the sweeper swept up bran. I taught dealers and 
their clerks to make like demonstrations, then went back 
to my office and taught them by mail. Then carpet sweep- 
ers began to sell. 

I enlarged on the plan by offering special exhibits. [ 
had the sweepers built in peculiar or rare woods. Or I 
had them built twelve woods to the dozen to make a 
forestry exhibit. I furnished circulars for dealers to put 
in their packages, inviting women to see an exhibit which 
would never appear again. Sales multiplied over and 
over. My methods brought me reputation, and I re- 
ceived numerous offers to enter wider fields. 

Since then I have never discussed mechanics with 
women. I have used very little logic. I have brought 
them to see what my product would do in some inter- 
esting manner. 


My next lesson was learned in the advertising of a 
vegetable shortening. I made very slow progress in 
merely talking that shortening against lard. I saw in a 
few weeks that I would lose my job before I won a profit. 
So I built in a department store in Chicago the largest 
cake in the world. It was made with this shortening. I 
advertised it like a circus and brought one hundred thou- 
sand women in one week to see it. I served them samples. 
Then I offered premiums to those who would buy that 
day. 

The plan was a tremendous success. ‘The shortening 
was placed on a profit-paying basis in one week. Then I 
built a like cake in the leading stores of a hundred cities 
and made the product a nation-wide success. 

That saved my job, gave me added reputation, and 
taught me to dramatize my subjects when I could. 


118 Masters of Advertising Copy 


My text lessons were learned in mail-order advertising. 
I did this on numerous lines at night. There I looked 
cost and result in the face, as all mail-order advertisers 
do. I found that any wasted space increased my cost. 
When I used a useless picture to attract attention, and 
that picture occupied one-third my space, it increased my 
cost fifty per cent. When I used a type twice larger than 
necessary it doubled my cost per reply. 

That taught me economy of space. I found that peo- 
ple would read ads set in small type just as readily as 
in large type. They read about everything they care to 
read in 8-point type or smaller. Larger type brought no 
additional readers. Nor did any meaningless picture or 
display. People read ads, like everything else, because 
the subject is interesting to them. They judge by the 
headline, on news items or on ads. I have saved adver- 
tisers millions of dollars through that well-proved prin- 
ciple of economizing space. 

Mail-order advertising also taught me that headlines 
differ immensely in their pulling power. A certain ad 
with one headline will pull ten times better than the 
same ad with another headline. That taught me to learn 
in every line what appeals pay best. It taught me to key 
all advertising, to compare one ad with another, just as 
mail-order advertisers do. And never to use an ad 
in wide circulation until I have tried it out. 

In the twenty-five years since then I have put thousands 
of ads to the test. I found on one line that a certain ap- 
peal cost $14.20 per reply. Another appeal on that 
same line cost 42 cents per reply. One ad on one line 
cost me $17 to get a coupon for a sample. Another ad 
on that same line, telling almost an identical story, cost 
35 cents per reply. In almost every line I have found 
certain lines of approach which would have made profit 


Claude C. Hopkins 119 


impossible. And those were often the ads which every- 
body favored. 

There lies the main reason for the success I have 
gained. I have never spent much money on a gamble 
or a guess. I have compared dozens of ads, sometimes 
hundreds of ads, before going into large circulation. The 
best-paying ads were selected. ‘Then I constantly tested 
other ads in a small way to find something better still. 
On one line I tried out 56 series of ads, and after five 
years I found a way to bring results at one-fourth the cost 
of the best way I had found before. 

I am convinced that nobody, save by some rare acci- 
dent, can do effective advertising without those compari- 
sons, based on known returns. Certainly others must 
make the same mistakes that I made. They must get 
the wrong viewpoints about as often as I did. Decades 
ago I would have wrecked myself and wrecked my clients 
had I not known my results. 


My next lesson was learned in starting numerous prod- 
ucts. I was gaining reputation. Countless people came 
to me with what they considered good advertising proj- 
ects. I made several great mistakes by relying on my 
judgment and on theirs. The products were not as sal- 
able as we thought. 

So I decided to attempt nothing until I had tested the 
project in a limited way. I set the limit on a test cam- 
paign at $5,000, but most such campaigns cost less. 
Thus I found out in a few towns the cost of winning one 
thousand customers. ‘Then I waited to see what those 
thousand would buy. Before branching out I always knew 
the cost per customer and the sale per customer. I let 
the thousands decide what the millions would do. When 
I did branch out I operated on a certainty. 

That is why I have remained in advertising thirty-six 


120 Masters of Advertising Copy 


years so far. That is why I have been trusted with the 
expenditure of $60,000,000. I limited losses. The mis- 
takes I made cost little. The successes made fortunes 
without risk. 

With advertising ventures and advertising men the 
fatalities are enormous. Nearly all the stars of adver- 
tising have perished before their prime. I believe that 
all of my early contemporaries are out of the field to- 
day. Many were brilliant men, but they made the mis- 
take of working in the dark. They had no compass, so 
they landed on the rocks. 


Another lesson I learned was the value of information. 
It first was taught me in a pork-and-bean campaign. It 
had not been very successful, but the maker of the prod- 
uct still believed in advertising. He was willing to ven- 
ture another $400,000 on a logical plan. 

I sent investigators from house to house to measure 
the situation. When their reports came in we found that 
ninety-four per cent of the housewives were baking their 
own beans. Only six per cent were buying any canned 
beans. Yet several makers were spending large sums to 
win that six per cent. 

I went after the home bakers, the ninety-four per cent. 
I cited the sixteen hours of soaking, boiling and baking 
required on a dish of beans. I pictured the beans in glass 
dishes, crisped on the top, mushy in the middle, all under- 
baked, all hard to digest. 

Then I told them how we baked—in steam ovens, at 
a temperature of 245 degrees. How we baked without 
crisping, without breaking the beans. ‘They came out 
nut-like, mealy and whole, fitted for easy digestion. I 
won on that line a place and a career in a great adver- 
tising agency—a career which continued for seventeen 
years, which brought me both fortune and fame. All be- 


Claude C. Hopkins 121 


cause I learned the situation and multiplied the power 
of my appeal. 


Another lesson I learned was in the days of beer adver- 
tising. All advertising brewers were then talking pure 
beer. They displayed the word “Pure” in big type. 
Finally one brewer used two pages, putting PU on one 
page and RE on the other, to make the ‘Pure’ more 
emphatic. But it was all like dropping water on a duck. 

One brewer who held fifth place asked me to take up 
his advertising. I went to a brewing school. Then I 
went through his brewery. I saw a plate-glass room 
where beer was cooled in filtered air. I saw the beer 
filtered through white pulp wood. Bottles were washed 
four times by machinery. Every pump and pipe was 
cleaned after every operation. The brewery was on the 
shore of Lake Michigan, but they bored down 4,500 feet 
to get still purer water. 

I went to the laboratory and saw a mother yeast cell 
kept in glass. They told me that yeast had resulted from 
1,200 experiments to get an ideal flavor. And that all 
the yeast used in that brewery was produced from that 
mother cell. 

I was astounded. ‘‘Why,” I asked, “have you never 
told this story?’ They told me that their methods 
formed common brewery practise. Any rival could claim 
whatever they claimed about them. 

But I pictured that plate glass room and told of those 
filters and processes. In two years that brewery jumped 
from fifth place to first place. Largely because I gave 
convincing reasons for purity and flavor. 


In the early days of automobile advertising there ex- 
isted a general impression that profits were too high. In 
a line I was advertising our chief opportunity seemed to 
lie in combating that impression. 


122 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Others were claiming low prices and low profits. I 
came out with a headline, ‘‘Our Profit is 9 Per Cent.” I 
told the exact cost of engine, chassis, wheels, tires, etc. 
I cited exact costs of $762 on a $1,500 car, without men- 
tioning body, top or unholstery—the things most con- 
spicuous in a Car. 

The success of that campaign taught me to be exact. 
When we claim the best or the cheapest, people smile. That 
is advertising license. But when we state figures, they are 
either true or untrue, and people do not expect a reputable 
concern to lie. They accept the figures at par. Ever since 
then, whenever possible, I have stated my facts in figures. 


In other ways I learned the fearful cost of changing 
people’s habits. One was in a campaign on oatmeal, an- 
other on a dentrifice. I tried to induce more people to 
eat oats, and I found that the cost of winning new users 
was vastly beyond any possible returns. I tried to con- 
vert new users to the tooth brush habit. As nearly as I 
could figure, the cost was $25 per convert. If all con- 
verts used our tooth paste all their lives we could scarcely 
get the money back. 

So I quit that. I am letting others convert people 
to new habits. I simply try to get them, when they are 
converted, to use my type of product. Since I learned 
that lesson, I have spent millions of dollars in advertising 
oatmeal and tooth pastes. But I have never used one 
line, one word, to win people to a habit they have not as 
yet adopted. 


I learned another lesson in connection with oatmeal. 
We knew that countless people failed to serve oatmeal 
because of the time required for cooking. So we put 
out a ready-cooked oatmeal called Two-Minute Oats. 
It was so flavory, so enticing, so easy to prepare that we 


Claude C. Hopkins 123 


wanted to jump into national advertising without the 
usual limited test. But we made the test, and we quickly 
found that people did not like Two-Minute Oats. It was 
a delightful product, but it did not taste like the oatmeals 
people knew. We were appealing to oatmeal users, and 
they all had certain educated tastes. They refused our in- 
novation. 

Later came another idea for quick-cooking oats. This 
method did not change the flavor. The advertiser did 
not think the idea worth a trial. They cited the fact that 
we had already failed on a quick-cooking oatmeal. But 
I argued the difference and urged them to submit the 
question to two thousand women. We did that at a cost 
of about $1,000—by buying a package of the new prod- 
uct for them. We stated the facts, told them that here 
was a product with a flavor like the oatmeals they knew. 
But it cooked in three minutes. We wanted their verdict 
onit. To the two thousand women who asked for a pack- 
age we sent a letter stating the facts again. We said that 
it made no difference to us which type they preferred. 
We simply wanted to learn their choice. We enclosed a 
stamped envelope for their reply. Ninety-one per cent of 
those women voted for the new type, and the concern 
which makes it has gained a new hold on that field. 


Good advertising is a matter of experience and experi- 
ment. All of us make at least ten mistakes to every suc- 
cess we create. Any of us, acting on judgment alone, 
would meet with quick disaster. This is truer now than 
ever. Advertising is more costly than it used to be. ‘The 
competition is many times as severe. We cannot win out 
on a guess. We cannot hope to succeed unless we care- 
fully test our ideas. 

We cannot know enough people to measure up public 
opinion. We cannot anticipate the wants, the prejudices 


124 Masters of Advertising Copy 


or the idiosyncrasies which confront any new undertaking. 
We can learn only by experience. We must feel our way, 
else the best man among us will soon find a precipice 
which may forever destroy men’s confidence in him. 


VII 
Copy—Good, Bad, and Indifferent 


RicHARD A. Fo.try. Died in 1923. Was head of Richard 
A. Foley & Company, advertising agents, Philadelphia, and 
had a national reputation as a writer of advertising copy. He 
was a newspaper man for a number of years, and also a forceful 
speaker. 


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VII 
Copy—Good, Bad, and Indifferent 
By Richard A. Foley 


OT only the beginner in advertising work, but the 

N old hand, may find it worth while to consider the 

plain fundamentals of advertising copy and to get 

as far as possible away from the altruisms and “untrue- 

isms” so plentifully besprinkling the pages of magazines 

and books which seek to make plain the proper and profit- 
able ways of advertising. 

There is a deal of misinformation vouchsafed begin- 
ners, and to the old practitioner—much that passes for 
inspiration is silly nonsense. 

Perhaps with what I have in mind, the chapter might 
well be headed: ‘Common Sense in Advertising,” for 
although this kind of sense is supposed to be the heritage 
of all, it is indeed most uncommon, having become var- 
nished over and decorated with all sorts of fantastic, 
grotesque and whimsical interpretations and outgivings. 

If it were convenient or necessary to put into one phrase 
the secret of advertising copy that really attains the full 
measure of its purpose, that message would read: 


Be Natural and Sincere. 


Now to be natural and sincere is by no means easy of 
accomplishment. 
The real artist is one who conveys to the auditors the 
127 


128 Masters of Advertising Copy 


meaning of the melody which he plays, or the soul that 
animates the character he delineates in the play. 

The great painter is not photographic, but suggestional 
—he makes us see not merely the visible things, but the 
significances which the wonderful eye of his mind has 
focalized. 

Great literature must necessarily be sincere. The more 
natural its technique, the more livable and lovable it is. 

True art, therefore, in advertising, consists in making 
the reader see for himself that which the advertiser is 
eager to have him see, and doing it without the appearance 
of eagerness. 


Few Fixed Principles 


Advertising is such an enormous force and so widely 
used—and its economic history is of such recent scope— 
that we have few fixed principles by which to judge the 
value or comparative worth-whileness of any particular 
type of advertising. Hence, many prophets rush into 
print claiming wonders each for his favorite method, 
when, upon close analysis, it would be revealed that too 
often it merely represents the meretricious, the easily 
clever, the varnish laid thick and glossy upon a poor foun- 
dation. 

Three forms of advertising seem most to call forth 
praise from the unthinking—the Slogan, the Versified 
Advertisement, and the ‘‘Stunt.’’ Under the latter head 
may be rated all sorts of bizarre presentations of more 
or less bright subjects, such, for example, as—“I am 
the Anvil,” followed by a long series of ‘‘I-am’s,”’ telling 
what an otherwise uninteresting anvil really is and does. 
This “I am” method in various guises has been applied 
to all sorts of merchandise. 

Then there is the ‘Say Jones’ Spuds to the Grocer” 


Richard A. Foley 129 


idea—the repetition of a phrase or a picture, in maga- 
zines, newspapers, billboards, street cars, to the saturation 
point with the expectation of forcing the merchandise 
on the community. 

The slogan is probably the most overrated form of 
advertising cleverness. ‘The mere smoothness of phrase- 
ology—the “‘aptness” of the thing—marks it as merely 
the work of an advertising-phrase-maker. It is repre- 
sentative not at all of the sincere effort of the manufac- 
turer or the actual character of his product. In a world 
of slogans, a plain statement of honest fact, marked by 
sincerity, carries great weight. 

It is as though a listener were in the midst of a com- 
pany of stimulated, bright men, making epigrams, regard- 
less. His ear would soon tire, and his brain fail to re- 
spond to the artificial stimulus. The sincere, worth- 
while statements of a man of character, carrying with 
them the conviction that back of these statements were 
truth and honesty, would clear the atmosphere for the 
auditor and make a lasting impression. 

Here and there during the last twenty years a slogan 
has been developed which, because of its sincerity and the 
thoroughness of its description, has carried weight and 
value. 

But I am not afraid to go on record as saying that 
ninety-five per cent of the slogans are useless, and, if 
anything, harmful and are merely a habit of the adver- 
tiser or the urge of an over-wrought advertising man. 


Why Jingles Are Artificial 


As most of us in this work-a-day world are in the habit 
of expressing ourselves, as did Moliére’s character, in 
prose, even though we don’t know it, the artificiality of 
the jingle soon becomes apparent, and, concurrently, loses 


130 Masters of Advertising Copy 


force. Now and then there is a reason for putting over 
‘‘atmosphere”’ in versified form. As in the case of ‘‘Vel- 
vet Joe” in the tobacco advertising, the character was 
evolved for the purpose of surrounding the article with a 
romance, a philosophy, a kindliness that constitutes prob- 
ably the chief reason for the use of pipe and tobacco. 
And to get this across, occasionally verse was necessary. 
But here it was not permitted to dominate. Verse in 
dialect form or copy in dialect is usually a great handicap, 
and the character of Velvet Joe was put across with a 
modicum of dialect, although the impression was given 
that the verses were really full of the patois. If the copy 
were to be examined, it would be found that very little 
real dialect entered into it. 

Dialect is a dangerous thing—so is verse and so are 
slogans, for they nearly always fall short of being sincere 
and natural. 

Now it may be said that people who are sincere and 
natural too often are dull and that advertising copy based 
on these premises would be uninteresting and flat. How- 
ever, the dull man being natural and sincere is more likely 
to be impressive than were he to attempt cleverness. In 
the latter case, he adds insincerity to dulness. But if 
he were to tell his story in his own simple, sincere way, 
it would at least have the weight of truth and earnestness. 

There are a number of advertising writers who en- 
deavor to put on surface cleverness without the solid 
backing of thoroughness. The biggest task any director 
of advertising energy has to-day is to insist that the men 
having the trick of writing, acquire likewise the stability 
of sincerity and thoroughness. 

In my advertising agency experience, I have employed 
many writers who, while possessed of cleverness, lacked 
thoroughness. It has been my observation that a man 
who will not dig for all the details that should be remem- 


Richard A. Foley 131 


bered in writing advertising, is not likely to be perfectly 
sure of himself on any of them. If there are ten possible 
points of copy, and a man is uncertain about points 1, 7, 
and 9, he is likely to be wrong about any of the ten. In 
advertising writing, it is necessary to know everything 
in order to convey anything. 

A vast amount of advertising printed to-day is purely 
surface stuff, and results are largely achieved by the brute 
force of the space, the constant reiteration of the firm 
name and product, and that rather intangible aroma of 
success which hangs about an ‘advertising campaign.” 


Advantages of Being Natural 


But when a manufacturer enjoys the privilege of reach- 
ing millions of people in one printing of his announce- 
ment, it is his duty to see that the statements which ap- 
pear above his name are both natural and sincere. If he 
has an advertising agent or writer who possesses his con- 
fidence and has the ability to carry out his work properly, 
then his sincerity and naturalness can be made all the 
more convincing and interesting. 

The stories of Robert Louis Stevenson—Treasure 
Island and Kidnapped, for example—are natural and 
sincere. Yet they lose none of their beauty because they 
are. Rather do they grow more wonderful with the read- 
ing and more fixed as gems of literature with each suc- 
ceeding generation. On the other hand, the “‘best sellers” 
which pick out some little freak of existence or some 
peculiar sex or social entanglement and build a fearsome 
or a daring story around this vortex, supply the fireworks 
of literature, seen and forgotten quickly. The work 
of the real writer burns torchlike—steadily and constantly 
for those who would follow the right path. 

Advertising involves the expenditure of so many mil- 


132 Masters of Advertising Copy 


lions of dollars and upon its true direction depends the 
growth of so large a number of splendid business enter- 
prises, that its wrong use, its careless use, is unpardonable. 

It must not be supposed that advertising men are alone 
responsible for this. The fault is quite frequently with 
the advertisers themselves, and this makes the task of the 
average advertising man, from the very beginning, the 
more difficult, and is quite likely to lead him into wrong 
conclusions that will later affect his worth. 

It is too commonly believed that success is a faculty in 
itself rather than the possible product of some one or 
two faculties quite individual and distinct. A man may 
be a great organizer, and through this develop a fine 
business, reach a high position, and achieve a high situa- 
tion. In this particular place, he may have the direction 
of the expenditure of large sums of money for advertis- 
ing. But is he qualified? 

The genius for organization characterized both Wash- 
_ ington and Napoleon. They had, of course, additional 
great abilities. Some men have one ability; others two; 
and some, many. Washington and Napoleon both be- 
lieved in relying upon their generals. They picked out 
the best men they could find and then entrusted important 
movements to them, exercising their own ingenuity and 
time for further combinations and for judgment when it 
was most needed. 

Such a man, too, was General Grant. In the planning 
of his campaign, he employed the forces at his command 
with full reliance upon their strength and availability. 

On the other hand, some of the princes and generals 
- opposed to Napoleon trusted none but themselves, and, 
as a result, they were most of the time in confusion. One 
of the great failures of the American Revolution was Gen- 
eral Gates who trusted no one, not even Washington. 

Now there are advertising managers and advertisers 


Richard A. Foley 133 


who cannot trust the best generals they employ, and hence 
their plans of campaign oft go astray and work out 
poorly. There are men—and it has been my privilege to 
work with some of them—who have several qualities of 
success besides leadership—in some instances, being pos- 
sessed of a thorough knowledge of human nature in the 
main, as well as in the individual. These men have gen- 
erally very good reasons for their criticisms of advertis- 
ing and their constructive suggestions. But a great many 
advertisers, on the other hand, assume that because they 
have been successful in business, they are also first-class 
judges of advertising and advertising phraseology and 
method. Being in power, they give orders, regardless, 
overwhelm all suggestion and carry things with a high 
hand. Sometimes this wins out, because of its very sin- 
cerity. But too often, we can read in expensive pages of 
advertising “‘snap judgment.” 


How to Attain Sincerity 


How, then, is the sincere and natural to be attained ? 

First of all, by the avoidance of the rubber-stamp 
phraseology of advertising. No man looks well in the 
clothes of another. No advertisement sounds well clothed 
in the cant or professional phraseology picked from the 
advertising pages. 

Descriptive phrases, adjectival draperies and the ‘‘Sun- 
day-go-to-meeting”’ garb prepared for one product, do 
not very well fit another. Any one who cares to go 
through the magazines and newspapers will find not scores 
—but hundreds—of phrases, combinations of words, so- 
called “ideas,” applied without regard either to original- 
ity or sincerity, lending to advertising a smooth, unimpres- 
sive sameness which sometimes makes the thoughtful 
wonder at the success of the great economic force itself. 


134 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Let us take one phrase, for example: 


Discriminating men have unanimously declared in 
favor of Blank’s safety razor. You are not doing 
justice to yourself unless you examine into its mar- 
velous comfort, usefulness, etc., etc. 


It seems from the advertiser’s point of view, that prac- 
tically all men are discriminating men, and that their ar- 
ticle has been entirely or unanimously in favor with the 
said discriminating multitude. In advertising we learn 
that practically everything is the ‘‘best”’; or “unequaled” ; 
or ‘‘most”’; or “the favorite.” Nothing by chance is ever 
second in line—very few things stand upon their own 
merits, but must achieve by comparison, invidious or 
otherwise. 


Too Much Over-Claiming in Advertising 


Every advertiser ‘“‘takes his pen in hand” with the de- 
termination of setting forth the fact that he is the prime 
manufacturer in everything relating to quality. ‘There 
is an unblushing conceitedness and egotism about a great 
deal of advertising which absolutely removes it from the 
class of the sincere and natural. 

To this sometimes is added effrontery. It need not 
be necessary to go into detail, because any thoughtful 
reader can select for himself an advertisement which af- 
fronts and displeases by its tone, sometimes approaching 
vulgarity. 

Now a vulgar person may imagine himself to be very 
forceful and dominating, but his exit is usually followed 
by a shrug of the shoulders and a deprecating smile. 
They do not carry conviction. And the same with adver- 


Richard A. Foley 135 


tisements of this kind. To avoid this seems like a very 
simple matter, indeed, but this simplicity is what makes 
it dificult of achievement, because it hardly seems worth- 
while being natural and sincere, when so much stress and 
importance are placed upon the “brilliant,” and the un- 
usual—the bizarre in advertising. 

Now, if the reader agrees with this premise, let us go 
along a little further into deduction. 

First of all, let us induce in the advertiser, if we can, 
a sensible, frank, thoughtful mood. He has a story to 
tell about his product. He believes in it. If he thinks it 
is somewhat better than another, or than the general run, 
there must be a reason for this beyond the mere idea that 
‘the wish is father to the thought.” 

A lot of us wish that we were brilliant, and wonder- 
ful, and leaders of men, and that, being manufacturers, 
our products were unequaled in their character and value, 
of great use to the world and something to be proud of. 
But there must be something more than wishing. There 
must be reasons—real ones. 

This is not a plea for ‘“‘reason why” copy in advertising. 
By “reason why” copy we mean the argumentative, ex- 
planatory style of advertising which begins at the begin- 
ning and after a considerable period, winds up at the end. 

There is a time and a place for the ‘treason why” of 
advertising. The public will not stand a whole lot of it, 
as a rule, because they have their “ups and downs”’ and 
their own affairs, and they are not to be intrigued by a 
long dissertation written from the standpoint of the 
manufacturer. 

When an article is of sufficient importance and its 
differentness is easily understood or explained, ‘reason 
why” occasionally is good. 

But reason why in the product itself is really necessary 
to success. 


136 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Now, having obtained, if possible, the frank, unbiased 
opinion and explanation of the manufacturer, we en- 
deavor to see wherein lie the points of contact between 
his ideas, his product, and the public’s needs, inclina- 
tions and prejudices. 


Dig Out “The Story” 


Years ago, I had experience as City Editor of a large 
newspaper. One of the questions we usually asked the 
reporter who brought in an account of any happening 
was: ‘“‘What’s story?” ‘Chis meant—what was the high- 
light of the thing—the dominating feature of it—the 
most unusual or interesting thing about it? Which sec- 
tion or part of the story had the most interesting points 
of contact with the public? 

If there was a fire in a three-story house—and $500 
loss, this was worth three or four lines, but if a woman 
threw a feather bed out of the third-story window and 
then carefully lowered her little children out onto the 
bed, saving their lives, this exhibition of maternal thought 
and height to which the mother spirit could rise, would 
be worth half a column. In this case,’the fire was not 
the story—it was the mother’s action. 

Back of the career of almost every manufacturer there 
is a warm, vital story of achievement which, while not 
always of interest to the public, still colors and vitalizes 
his work. 

To find these highlights—‘“to get out the story’’—is 
the biggest thing that an advertising copy writer can do 
—and then to present it in a sincere, natural way, mak- 
ing it interesting, giving it variety of presentation, if pos- 
sible, without abandoning the main theme, and avoiding 
all the insincerities. 

In other words, cutting the cloth to the proper measure 


Richard A. Foley USF 


and having a pattern suited to the subject, with thorough 
care in every detail. 

Under “‘detail’”’ we must consider art in advertising— 
that is, the picturizing of the product, its use, its appli- 
cation to the individual or the family, or the sense of sat- 
isfaction that comes from its use. A pipe and a tin of 
tobacco on a brass plate mean very little, but there are a 
hundred ways of vitalizing this subject, as will be seen 
at a glance in any magazine or newspaper. 

See how the hosiery advertisers have conveyed the 
thought of lasting quality of hose, good fit, fine appear- 
ance, social correctness, high value, and other qualities, 
by the use of pictures. 

On the other hand, pictures are frequently carried to 
the extreme. There is a mad riot of color in some of the 
magazines, and certain advertisers seem to have entered 
into a kind of vaudeville competition for the entertain- 
ment of readers, in which more or less eccentric art work 
plays a large part, to a great extent dimming the luster of 
the product and the convincingness of the advertising it- 
self. We often hear that these things are successful, and 
yet the greater successes are achieved in other ways. 

The advertising beginner, or even the old hand, must 
not be misled by stories which find currency in advertis- 
ing circles, relative to the success of this or that company 
or product. The bank balance, the dividend record, the 
price (if listed) on the New York Stock Exchange, fre- 
quently tell more than fantastic stories of success achieved 
by circusing or methods somewhat akin. 


The Merchandising Tie-Up 


Of course, in all this, what is known as merchandising, 
the tying up of the effort of the advertiser, his salesman, 
the jobber, and the retailer, in one unbroken line—to 


138 Masters of Advertising Copy 


reach and influence the public—plays a large part. Ad- 
vertising cast like bread upon the waters may return, but 
along with advertising to-day should really go the motive 
power of good selling methods. Advertising is used not 
only to influence the consumer but to influence the “‘trade,”’ 
beginning with the advertiser’s own organization. 

There are various ways of doing this, and too many of 
them have fallen into the rubber-stamp class. 

What will be proper and right and helpful for one 
manufacturer might fall far short with another. 

It is dangerous to assume that all house organs, and all 
‘follow ups,” all circularizing matter, all sales conven- 
tions, all direct-mail efforts, will get results of equal 
value. Some of them reap a harvest of money, and 
others over-emphasize one side or the other in a way 
which is likely to “rock the boat.” 

Here, too, being sincere and natural with one’s own 
salesmen, organization, and retailers, is wise. Don’t try 
to hand ‘‘bunk”’ to the salesman. That’s the way they 
put it. An ounce of horse sense will get more genuine 
enthusiasm out of a salesman than any quantity of 
theoretical “‘hot air.” 


Is Advertising “Salesmanship in Print’? 


In a chapter of this kind, it is not possible to touch 
properly upon the relationship of selling-effort to adver- 
tising-effort, but right here I should like to nail one 
glaring misconception and that is that “advertising is 
salesmanship in print.” 

To be sure, the object of advertising is to sell goods, 
but it cannot replace the salesmanship which must take 
place in the shop or in the meeting of the salesman with 
the jobber or the retailer, 


Richard A. Foley 139 


It is not salesmanship in this sense, at all. It is more 
education, enlightenment and—above all things—sug- 
gestion. 

The chief reason that advertising cannot be ‘“‘sales- 
manship in print” is that a salesman or a retailer can 
sense quickly the unresponsiveness or prejudices of a 
potential customer. He can answer questions, avoid 
issues or close them. He can be extremely specific. As 
an advertisement must be all things to all men, it must 
be suggestional rather than argumentative, more often 
than not. It cannot attempt to answer questions, because 
it would become interminably involved. 

The “salesmanship in print” kind of advertising pretty 
often is the sort that will pass muster among an adver- 
tiser’s employees who are invited to judge of its merits. 
Written with an eye to the home office viewpoint, this 
sort of copy usually gets by a jury, but the fact remains, 
none the less, that the real jury in the case is the con- 
sumer. 

Another reason why it is sometimes a doubtful expe- 
dient to call upon employees for judgment on an adver- 
tisement, is that immediately upon being asked for advice 
or criticism, the average man or woman becomes unnat- 
ural or insincere. If it were decided to obtain, before 
printing a thing, real substantial expression of the 
reaction of the advertisement on the average run of 
individuals, it might be excellent. But spontaneity imme- 
diately dies when criticism is called into conscious func- 
tioning. 

Some members of the impromptu jury are bound to 
endeavor to find out what the predilection of the “boss”’ 
may be, and in more or less hit-or-miss fashion try to 
approximate this. 

Others become unnatural, seeking out all sorts of 
details which would in no wise affect them as advertisers, 


140 Masters of Advertising Copy 


or readers, or possibly purchasers of this or that similar 
line of goods. 

Therefore, the advertising writer or counselor, either 
in the beginning or well along in his or her career, cannot 
afford to be swayed too much by the judgment of those 
called into council, who are not equipped by advertising 
experience and knowledge of advertising and the proper 
judgment. 

This advertising judgment is built up likewise by long 
experience, observations; by study, investigation, prac- 
tice. It becomes a sixth sense and cannot be achieved 
quickly by text-books, by amateur incursions into adver- 
tising, or by the re-hashing of second-hand opinions. 

When business men become imbued with the knowledge 
that advertising is a serious matter because it is a factor 
of such tremendous strength, they will give it the right 
attention; and then advertising counselors will receive 
the same measure of respect and confidence which (as far 
as they personally deserve it) is bestowed upon physi- 
cians, lawyers and others who specialize by study and 
practice in any definite form of service. 


Something about “Style in Advertising” 


Style in advertising is a much discussed subject. I have 
tried to point out that style should be natural and sincere. 

There are two great divisions of advertising in which 
two distinctive styles are necessary—retail advertise- 
ments which are largely the announcements of stores 
and which, to some extent, depend upon the bargain 
inducement; and general advertising, which aims to de- 
velop new habits of living—personal and household— 
on the part of the readers. 

This sort of advertising has exerted a tremendous 
influence upon life in America, even more than it has in 


Richard A. Foley 141 


other countries. The modern home to-day largely owes 
its development to advertising, which has instilled into 
homekeepers the desire for mechanical, electrical and 
other improvements in the home, and has raised the 
standards until all, irrespective of social class, live on a 
better plane than the very best families lived thirty or 
forty years ago. 

Any advertising writer who forgets this big fact is 
overlooking the chief reason for the success of modern 
advertising. 

The people of this country desire to live better and 
they put their wish into work, in order that they may 
earn more, which again means that they may spend more, 
and so the ascending spiral goes. 

Any suggestion looking to the cutting down of com- 
fort, even of certain luxuries, would be a backward step 
in American development. 

Here, then, is another point worth remembering—in 
writing advertising copy, have in mind an audience that 
lives better than it did five years ago and is likely to 
live still better five years hence; that is learning every 
day; and is, consequently, not to be patronized, but, 
rather, informed. 

On the question of style, further, it must be remem- 
bered that advertising written for an exclusively feminine 
audience must have quite a different tone from that which 
reaches men, or even the general family. Certain 
phrases are characteristic of the description of women’s 
garments, women’s articles of luxury, of the toilet, and 
the impedimenta dear to the feminine heart. 

The only way this phraseology can be attained prop- 
erly is by a study of similar advertising, or, better still, 
by frequent interviews with those properly equipped to 
explain the ins and outs and to talk in the current lan- 
guage of the women’s shops or departments. It is not 


142 Masters of Advertising Copy 


necessary that women writers should handle this, because 
there are men who know exactly the way to phrase a 
story or to follow it up in order to obtain the right 
results. 

But the right style appeals to women, and fashion and 
vogue have much greater sway over them than substan- 
tiality and long wear. 


The “Urge”? in Advertising 


In all discussions of advertising style, the so-called 
‘urge’? must be considered. 

There are two ways of expressing urge—one is to 
argue strongly with the reader—“tell it to the dealer’’; 
another finds expression in the last few lines of the 
advertisements, wherein the advisability of doing this, 
that, or the other thing to-day is magnified. 

Read the average magazine or newspaper—especially 
the former—and see for yourself how much time you 
would have left for other things, if you did everything 
“to-day,” “now,” “immediately,” “before you forget it’’ 
—which you are urged to do by the impatient adver- 
tiser. It is advertising treason, almost, to leave off the 
“urge.” Yet in a world of urges, one is apt to take one’s 
time and pay no attention to the clarion calls. 

As to these urges on the dealer, suppose you try one 
of them yourself on the dealer, providing you are not a 
man of family and have no care for what is likely to 
happen to you. Just imagine yourself going to a dealer 
and saying: “‘Mr. Dealer, I want Blank’s (here insert 
jam, sugar, hammers, chocolates, oatmeal, griddlecake 
flour, patent fasteners, or any of the thousand and one 
things you see advertised). I will not be satisfied with a 
substitute. I want the only, genuine Blank’s. All I need 
do is to say—‘Blank’s’—and you will see that I am a 


Richard A. Foley 143 


discriminating man or woman. You are not doing jus- 
tice to yourself or me if you do not keep this article in 
stock. I insist upon it,”’ etc., etc. 

Before you follow the advice in some of the adver- 
tisements, however, practise this speech, or parts of it, 
that are urged upon you, on your own family. If this 
proceeding does call into question your sanity, then try 
it on the dealer, if you will. 

Here, indeed, is the acme of the insincere and unnat- 
ural in advertising, and so far as style goes, the less of 
it used, the better. 


Where to Put the Advertising Urge 


Good advertising will put the urge into the prospective 
buyer’s mind rather than merely give it utterance in the 
language of the advertiser. ‘The best style technique is 
the telling of a true story attractively and in terms of the 
reader’s understanding and sympathy, and in being sin- 
cere rather than smart; consistent rather than clever. 

Furthermore, the use of more verbs in advertising 
and of fewer adjectives and nouns would be a blessing. 
Let advertising represent action from the reader’s view- 
point rather than adulation from the advertiser’s. 

Remember that generalities are cheap and can be 
picked up with no effort. It is the specific that calls for 
digging and is hardest to obtain. 

Remember that no advertisement can be properly 
written unless the man who writes it has a real interest 
in writing it—the pride of creation, the pride of service, 
or the pride of knowledge. 

He should be inclined towards advertising work, or 
he will never be successful; he should be glad to render 
service which is helpful not only to the advertiser, but to 
the purchaser of the article. Advertising based on selling 


144 Masters of Advertising Copy 


insecure securities, harmful patent medicines, or other 
things that would establish loss or bad habits, cannot 
properly inspire any man. 

Service, therefore, upon which the progress of life 
really depends, should be the expression of the adver- 
tising writer’s inspiration. 

Then comes knowledge—knowledge of the product, 
knowledge of the men back of it, knowledge of the object 
of the campaign, knowledge of all the factors that enter 
into production and distribution; knowledge of the article 
in its various forms of use and its effect on the public 
welfare. 

If it be an article that renders service, inspiration, 
helps to make life better—all the better, for it makes 
for clearer and more inspired advertising. “Then there 
must be knowledge of the people as a whole—of the 
great public mind wherein rests the final verdict of 
success or failure for any advertising campaign. | 

Knowledge, too, of the tools of the worker—the 
language, the type, the pictures, if they be used. Upon 
these fundamentals depends what the advertising may 
achieve. 


The Individual Requirements 


Having begun work with some knowledge and under- 
standing of the things to forget and the things to remem- 
ber, the success of the individual advertisement writer 
will depend upon his own power of understanding and 
assimilation. Some are more gifted than others, and so 
with even the same details for a working basis, they will 
achieve better results. 

The advertisement writer who for inspiration confines 
himself largely to the perusal of works on advertising, 
or of advertising journals, will fall short. Advertising 


Richard A. Foley 145 


to-day competes with the best writing—not the most 
fanciful but the best writing. 

Given naturalness and sincerity, a wide acquaintance 
with the various methods of presenting facts or conclu- 
sions is a necessary corollary. 

The broadening of vocabulary is an excellent thing, 
not because this means that the advertisement writer 
should use big words, but that he should use the right 
words. An advertisement should be a mosaic of prop- 
erly fitted pieces, not a thrown-together thing filled in 
by the plaster of phraseology. 

Broad reading is necessary to the accomplishment of 
right phraseology. Advertising plays an important part 
in life, and a knowledge of life, of character, of the 
various reactions of events upon character and peoples, 
is of great value. 


Giving Advertising Copy a Pleasant “Tone” 


Pleasant, cheerful, sympathetic advertising can be sin- 
cere and natural, and yet too many writers mistake 
harshness for sincerity. 

A man can be a gentleman and still be honest; and an 
advertisement can be kindly, friendly, and still sincere 
and truthful. 

Through inexperience, ill-equipped writers too often 
mistake blatancy for force. 

Refinement in writing and expression can be appreci- 
ated and understood by the uneducated as well as by 
holders of college degrees. The time is coming when 
advertising must meet a higher standard—when brag and 
bluster in the presentation of professional claims will be 
discounted as they should be. 

A doctor is not a better doctor because he publishes 
broadcast his cures. It takes years of effort to build up 


146 Masters of Advertising Copy 


his reputation. There are quack doctors in advertising 
as well as in medicine—sometimes individuals, sometimes 
organizations. As business men acquire knowledge of 
the potentialities of advertising and its effect on the 
public, there will be a more determined effort to obtain 
worth-while advertising truly representative of the co- 
partnership between the various classes in the making of 
American life. 

Miss Flora Klickman—editor of one of the largest and 
most successful women’s publications in England—says in 


her recent book—The Lure of the Pen: 


The sounds produced by people are invariably a 
direct indication of the degree of their refinement— 
the greater the blare and clamor attendant upon 
their doings, and the more harsh and uncultivated 
their speaking voices, the less their innate refine- 
ments. . . . Unfortunately, the twentieth century, 
so far, has been primarily concerned with the making 
of noise rather than music. 


Advertising Is a Reflex of Life 


There is much ‘“‘jazz” in advertising to-day. Some of 
it screams forth raucously. Advertising that gets away 
from this and presents its ideas and claims in a pleasing, 
interesting, and, if possible, sympathetic way, will most 
quickly achieve. The copy writer should endeavor to get 
this spirit into the idea back of the advertising—the soul 
of it, so to speak—as well as into the words that clothe it. 

Remember, too, that in advertising, as in literature, 
and, in fact, in life itself, there must be a beginning, a 
development and a climax. 

Some things, therefore, to avoid in advertising, are— 
putting too much force and “‘buying urge” into the open- 
ing paragraphs, too little information in the development, 


Richard A. Foley 147 


and little, if any, conclusive inspiration at the end. Ad- 
vertisements, indeed, should be assembled as well as 
written. ‘They should be gathered together in their com- 
ponent parts, and all the arguments, reasons and appeals 
weighed and considered; then the best for the space and 
purpose carefully coordinated and set forth. 

In the words of a well-known critic: “Hard writing 
makes easy reading.” 


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VITl 
The Research Basis of Copy 


J. Georce Freperick. Born 1882; was reporter on a news- 
paper, became department store advertising man and wrote 
articles on advertising for Printers’ Ink. Went west to become 
a member of the Lord & Thomas staff during ‘“‘reason why” 
propaganda, and edited magazine Judicious Advertising. Came 
to New York, joined Ben Hampton Agency and later was 
copy chief for Ward & Gow, subway advertising. 

He then became managing editor of Printers’ Ink, when 
George P. Rowell sold the magazine and the new owners began 
to develop it. In 1910 he resigned to form the Business Bourse, 
International, a commercial research organization, of which he 
is still the head. For several years, he was editor in chief of 
Advertising and Selling Magazine. He is author of five busi- 
ness books, and many articles in Saturday Evening Post, Review 
of Reviews, etc.; and is prominent in the New York Sales- 
managers’ Club, New York Advertising Club, Commercial 
Standards Council, etc. 


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VIII 
The Research Basis of Copy 
By J. George Frederick 


copy—in the work, for instance, of Mr. Powers 

at John Wanamaker’s in the nineties—informa- 
tion was the keynote. The reputation of Wanamaker 
advertising, made conspicuous by its proved: selling 
power, was a reputation for telling people the facts. 
The Wanamaker advertising was a rich education in the 
lore of merchandise, and the people liked it, because of 
Mr. Powers’ journalistic genius. For it was actual jour- 
nalistic genius; the genius of reporting, of a “nose for 
news” and of making facts interesting. Mr. Powers was 
not an advertising genius in the sense of being a brilliant 
salesman or merchandiser, per se. He was an advertis- 
ing genius in the sense that he demonstrated the selling 
power of information, as against mere clever plays upon 
words; and it is no distortion of history to say that Mr. 
Powers was probably the first modern advertising man. 
His work created the American department store era, 
and indirectly he inaugurated also a new era of adver- 
tising copy in all lines of business. 

This new conception of copy had probably its severest 
test and most monumental triumph when it was applied 
to the mail-order field, for Richard Sears, founder of 
Sears, Roebuck & Co., carried Mr. Powers’ idea to its 
logical conclusion and built a great institution, which 

I5I 


\ROM the very first modernization of advertising 


152 Masters of Advertising Copy 


many others have successfully emulated. None of these 
has ever departed, nor likely will, from the principle that 
mail-order buyers tend strongly to “‘sell themselves’’ if 
you give them a logically complete battery of informa- 
tion. A good mail-order catalog is a veritable encyclo- 
pedia of facts about the goods it advertises. The more 
information, apparently, the better the returns from mail- 
order copy. 

The building of advertising copy on information ad- 
vanced into new developments as years went on and as 
the advertising men gave more and more conscientious 
attention to all the circumstances and conditions upon 
which the success of advertising depends. Newspaper, 
magazine, street-car, poster advertising, to stimulate 
sales through dealers, had to contend with all the loose 
links which occur in the chain from manufacturer to 
consumer; had to contend with distribution and sales 
organization conditions, questions of package, of prices, 
competition, sectional differences, dealer states of mind, 
consumer conditions. “hese matters require research for 
finer fractional adjustment to the market and sure success. 

The writer of advertising copy has, therefore, gone 
through a cycle of development in relation to his data 
requirements before dipping his pen in ink. Once he 
sought merely to devise adjectives describing the goods, 
or concoct catch phrases. ‘Then he sought to individ- 
ualize the goods by specific differences; and later again 
he sought to attach to it the atmosphere of quality, and 
used subtle, indirect methods. 

Finally an entirely new phase arrived—a merchan- 
dising phase—forced upon the attention of advertising 
men by the failures of many purely general publicity cam- 
paigns, or by the brilliant successes of more practical, 
skilful merchandisers who wrote their copy from a com- 
pletely new angle—the selling plan. These merchan- 


J. George Frederick 153 


disers focused the advertising on a coupon; they turned 
periodical advertising into a mail-order and distribution- 
making tool; they stressed a new sampling or trial plan, 
a new sales plan for eliminating sales resistance in the 
reader’s mind. ‘They made a working tandem of the 
sales force and the advertising; in short, they virtually 
made advertising a sales management, field operation, 
instead of the rather cloistered semi-literary performance 
it had been. 

Once more, therefore, the advertising man changed 
character,—he had to become more of a merchandising 
man, with salesmanagement vision and genius. It took 
ten years to shake out of the advertising field the pre- 
dominance of mere ‘‘word-slingers,’” the men without 
business capacity. Advertising men of to-day are better 
business men, because the merchandising development in 
advertising compelled it. More advertising men are in 
consequence graduating to positions of sales-manager and 
higher up. 

To advertise an article in a terrifically competitive 
field, in a complicated distribution situation, such as gen- 
erally exists to-day, is no task for mere literary facility. 
The copy must be the apex of a solid base of merchan- 
dising plan, and it must be consciously written to aid that 
plan. It must be tailored to fit the campaign. It is for 
this reason that criticism of advertisements is conceded 
to be almost impossible without full knowledge of all the 
facts regarding the campaign and its aims and strategies. 
Like the iceberg, the visible part of the advertisement is 
but a small part of the real thing, and the visible part 
may look very unbalanced to the superficial critic until 
he sees the whole iceberg—the trade condition, the com- 
petitive, the consumer and the strategic situations. It is 
an absolutely naive point of view to judge advertising as 
one would judge a story or a poem. 


154 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Conceding, then, the modern need and use of research, 
before writing advertising, what are the angles of re- 
search used, the type of data which a fully modern 
advertising writer uses? 


Data Questions for Advertisers 


The need for copy data starts with the first contact 
with the advertiser and is best exemplified in this pre- 
liminary stage by a system of questions for the advertiser 
to answer. The following series of questions represents 
perhaps a more elaborate set of data than may be needed 
in the average case, but it has the merit of being inclu- 
sive. It is, of course, for general advertisers, and is 
most useful for advertising agencies, who can keep it on 
file systematically to enable different copy writers to have 
ready access to it. 


Nature of business. 

Proposition you wish to push (give details as fully as 
possible ). 

Description (if some specific article, describe fully). 

How long has article been on the market? 

How, when and where did the marketing of this prod- 
uct start? 

How put up? 

Do you sell the wholesaler ? 

When does he buy? 

In what quantity? 

Prices and discounts to wholesalers. 

Do you sell retailers direct? In what quantity? 

When does retailer buy? 

Prices and discounts to retailer. 

Do you sell consumer direct? In what quantity? 

When does consumer buy? 

Prices and discounts to consumer ? 


J. George Frederick 155 


Do you sell through canvassers? 

How do you secure them? 

When does canvasser buy? 

In what quantity? 

Prices and discounts to canvassers ? 

Do you grant exclusive territory? (If so, give details.) 

Do you cooperate in pushing the sale of your goods? 
(Describe in detail just what you do for wholesaler, 
retailer, or canvasser. ) 

Do you employ traveling salesmen? How many? 

On whom do your salesmen call? 

Give territory goods sell in? 

Give sources from which inquiries emanate? 

How many inquiries do you receive a year? 

What percentage order your goods? 

What season is best for your business? 

After you get an inquiry, how do you handle it? 

Have you ever put out a systematic Direct Advertising 
Campaign? 

How was it handled and of what did it consist? (Give 
complete details—nature of pieces and the returns in 
inquiries and orders. ) 

Do you issue a catalog? 

How many times do you follow up an inquiry by mail ? 

How many letters do you send a prospect? How 
many circulars? 

What postage, one or two cent stamp? 

Is article to be advertised Trade Marked? (If so, 
attach print of Trade Mark.) 

How is Trade Mark shown on article? 

Is Trade Mark registered? 

Are any special inducements or concessions made to 
wholesaler, retailer, consumer or canvasser? If any, 
describe them. 

Do you give free trial to consumer? 

What are conditions of free trial? 

Do you offer samples? 

If so, how are they distributed? 


156 Masters of Advertising Copy 


What competition have you? 

Give total annual sales during the past five years. 

How much may present sales be increased with- 
out interfering with your present manufacturing facil- 
ities? 

What goods do you manufacture besides those to be 
directly advertised? 

Are they marketed through the same channel as those 
about to be advertised? 

What other lines can be added to advantage? 

By what method do you keep record of inquiries, sales, 
etc., resulting from your advertising? 

What mailing lists have you on hand now? 

How new are they? 

How are they obtained? 

How many names do they contain, and what classifi- 
cations? 

What facilities have you for handling the detail work 
of ap advertising campaign, such as office devices, help, 
fed & 6 

What advertising literature have you on hand at 
present? 

About what amount would you appropriate for a 
campaign? 

What previous advertising has been done, and average 
cost per year? 

What class of media were used? 

What has been the average cost per inquiry? 

What has been the average cost per sale? 

What is the amount of your average sale? 

What is your margin of profit? 

What has been the sales history of the product? 

(a) with regard to selling plan; 

(b) with regard to road men; 

(c) with regard to direct selling; 

(d) with regard to retail outlets and dealer and 
jobber policy; 

(e) with regard to schemes and special plans; 


J. George Frederick 157 


(f) with regard to analysis of market, class of 
people, profit, etc.; 
(g) with regard to territorial work. 
What has been the advertising history of the product? 
(a) with regard to the appropriation spent; 
b) with regard to media used; 
(c) with regard to agency service; 


(d) with regard to copy: type of appeal; 

(e) with regard to cooperation with sales depart- 
ment; 

(f) with regard to follow-up work; 

(g) with regard to direct-mail work; 

(h) with regard to local advertising by dealers; 

(1) with regard to sampling; 

(j) with regard to the trade mark and the pack- 


age. 
Just what is the present situation with respect to the 
above outlined facts? 
What are the main factors which limit your market? 
In what direction is your product of your organization 
weak? 
Where and under what conditions— 

Have you found it easiest to sell? 

What class of people are the quickest buyers? 
What excuse do dealers give for not stocking up? 
What is your policy in respect to— 

(a) price maintenance; 

(b) quantity discounts; 

(c) dealers’ and jobbers’ profits; 

(d) guarantee; and 

(e) mail-order selling? 

Competitors— 

(a) how strong; volume and activity; 

(b) names and brief history of competitors and of 

class of goods in general; 

(c) price in comparison with competitors. 

Waht is the volume of business done and margin of 
profit ? 


158 Masters of Advertising Copy 


What are the manufacturing conditions? 
(a) capacity of production; 
b) season variations; 
(c) by-products; 
(d) ratio of costs to increased volume. 
How fully stocked are dealers at present? 
What grade men are on the sales force? 
What is the exact present status of distribution; how 
many dealers and where located? 
What follow-up literature do you now send out? 


After a full line of information about the advertiser 
is available, the advertising man is ready to raise the 
following questions about the proposition and answer 
them, or set about answering them by further research: 

(1) What kinds and types of people purchase goods? 

(2) What individual influences them or has joint 
authority or activity in making the purchase? 

(3) What are the habits of mind and general condi- 
tions surrounding the purchaser? 

(4) What is the exact need which the consumer feels, 
how does it arise, and what instinct, needs, desires and 
feelings does the article satisfy? 

(5) What preconceived ideas, prejudices and notions 
does the consumer bring to the purchase of the articles? 

(6) What are typical past experiences of consumers 
in endeavoring to purchase such articles? 

(7) What are the shopping or purchasing habits or 
modes of procedure of the average consumer? 

(8) What impression, reputation and general stand- 
ing of brands prevail in the buyer’s mind? 

(9) What standards in the matter of price and quality 
and service prevail in the mind of the consumer? 

(10) Analysis of consumer preferences for sizes, 
marking, types and models, etc. 


J. George Frederick 159 


(11) Statistical study of consumer, from a quantita- 
tive basis, giving facts as to number, distribution, location 
and concentration of consumers. 

(12) Inquiry into possible manner and means of de- 
veloping applications or uses of article. 


Ten Tests of an Advertisement 


Both before and after completing advertisements, it is 
a most valuable thing to apply critical estimates. I am 
setting down herewith a suggested series of tests to be 
applied to copy as a means of checking back whether it 
squares with the very high modern standard. ‘These 
tests are by no means complete or inclusive, but as very 
few others have been compiled, these will stand for my 
own conception of such a test: 

(1) What was the advertisement planned to accom- 
plish? What were the results? 

(2) Has the copy man thoroughly grasped the edito- 
rial character, the limitations and opportunities, both 
from the standpoint of the publication readers and also 
the typography, space, position, etc., of the periodical in 
which the advertisement in question is to appear? 

(3) Has the copy man thoroughly visualized the gen- 
eral mass mind to which he is appealing, and has he 
figured out what the mass reaction will be toward the 
article in question, the distributive situation which stands 
between the advertisement and the reader, the particular 
hold which the publication has upon that reader, the 
mood it finds him in, and the temper and tone and 
language of the advertisement ? 

(4) Has the general level of literacy of the mass of 
readers, in relation to the copy, the illustration and the 
typography been carefully planned to fit the kind of 
people whom the advertiser desires most of all to reach? 


160 Masters of Advertising Copy 


(5) Has the copy writer studied and balanced and 
rotated suitably the fundamental consumer appeals in- 
herent in the particular article in hand? 

(6) Have the advertisements been laid out with the 
right tone and atmosphere for the article? 

(7) Has the series of advertisements been carefully 
coordinated one with the other, in relation to the proper 
importance to be given to all considerations? 

(8) Has the relative display position of the headline 
and outstanding features been calculated so that the large 
percentage of readers who merely glance through a maga- 
zine may catch something as they run which will be of 
value and may lead to either arrest of attention or the 
fixation of a name or an idea? 

(9) Does the close of the advertisement give all the 
necessary facts and stimulate thought to get the reader to 
do what you finally wish him to do upon finishing the ad? 

(10) Has each single advertisement been constructed 
upon the basis of unity of effect, both typographically 
and from the point of view of content—its ideas and 
logic? Has the copy the right ‘“‘ring’”’? Is the English 
used checked over for double meanings, confusion, error, 
etesr i 

Finally, has the copy been checked by the proper 
authorities, O.K.’d by them, and have all necessary cor- 
rections and instructions been provided for it? 


Shaping the Product for Good Copy 


There’s a considerable difference between merely a 
“product” and a thoroughly merchandisable product. 
Millions of dollars are sunk annually on this rock, and 
it is well to hang a red lantern on it. Many articles now 
on the market—even fairly successful ones—are suffering 
handicaps through package, price, size, or other purely 


J. George Frederick 161 


manufacturing errors. There are hundreds of thousands 
of patents, of course, in the archives at Washington rep- 
resenting “‘products” of one kind and another which will 
never be known outside of these archives. ‘They are 
unmerchandisable; they are not commercially adapted to 
the market. Some could readily be thus adapted; others 
could never be. 

It is the relation a product bears to a present or pos- 
sible market that fixes its value; and as a sales product 
is a thing that is usually alterable and flexible in some 
degree, there is a great deal of profitable thinking and 
planning to be done on products either new or already 
on the market. ‘This is often to a large degree an adver- 
tising man’s task quite as much as a salesmanager’s. 
There are many instances of products which have had 
high sales resistance, but when changes in the product 
were made, based on copy and market analysis, the 
resistance greatly lessened. 

Let us take first the case of an entirely new product. 
It comes often fresh as a new-born babe from someone’s 
hands. It should be viewed chiefly as raw material and 
a starting point for development. People often wonder 
why it is axiomatic that the inventor or originator rarely 
makes a success of his project. Someone else so often 
makes the thing a success after taking it over. The 
explanation is simple: the inventor or originator nearly 
always has an emotional faith and pride in the exact 
rightness, “as is,” of his article, whereas the subsequent 
purchaser cares nothing if the reshaped product bears 
almost no resemblance to the original, so long as it does 
fit the market and sell. The inventor or originator does 
not perform a complete job—he originates only a ma- 
terial thing, whereas the complete creation of a mer- 
chandisable product must be material or mechanical and 
must possess the following: 


162 Masters of Advertising Copy 


) average adaptability, 

) wide marketability, 

) compactness, neatness, attractiveness, 
) psychological appeal, 

) popular or fitting price, and 

) individuality. 


It will, therefore, be seen that the advertising man of 
the modern type examines the article to be advertised, 
from the above points of view. Live advertisers apply 
inventive and market research quite as serious and im- 
portant as the first work of the inventor. In fact, the 
modern idea—one of great significance in business team- 
work—is combination research and technical work on a 
product, so that there will not be the frequent and waste- 
ful lack of completeness in an article, from a marketing 
point of view. So much time is often lost by false starts, 
when this 1s neglected. 

Such preliminary analysis, whether or not done by or 
through the advertising man, may very well be watched 
and studied by the modern copy man, who is, after all, 
the central genius in the work of successful advertising, if 
he functions on all four cylinders. 

The research of the product should gather facts and 
reach conclusions on such factors as— 


(1) Adaptability in cost, nature, operation and use, 
and general commercial availability. 

(2) The usefulness, volume of possible sale, technical 
excellence or defects under average conditions 
of use and abuse. 

(3) The devising of new models or materials to fit 
certain market conditions or opportunities. 

(4) The reshaping and planning of an article or 
device to fit the commercial necessities and ad- 
visabilities, from the point of view of price, 
profit, class of users, public psychology, etc. 


J. George Frederick 163 


(5) The selection and study of a new article of manu- 
facture desired, which will meet with equal suc- 
cess the suggestions of technical economy and 
feasibility as well as maximum sales and profit 
possibilities. 

(6) A technical examination of all competitive goods 
and an analysis of competitive claims, and the 
working out in figures of the exact comparative 
standing of various brands or types of goods. 


One of the practical methods of analyzing a product 
from the market side is to make a consumer investigation 
which will produce a cross-section of consumer attitude to 
the line of goods, and develop any defects, suggestions or 
opportunities. As an illustration, the ‘‘corset-buying his- 
tory’ of some thousands of women was taken in one 
investigation in order to learn why the women changed 
from one brand to another. ‘The details of five separate 
corset purchases by each individual were recorded. When 
all the returns were in it was possible to see on what point 
each brand of corset had “fallen down” or “‘stood up,” 
under consuming conditions. 


Rating the “Appeals” 


A similar plan was successfully used in a watch investi- 
gation to determine how the different makes of cheap 
watches fared in the hands and minds of purchasers. 
Such data revealed the weak points of all the articles in 
the market—a most important matter to be informed 
about in planning the copy appeal; that is, the effective 
arguments. A product, to a sales and advertisng man- 
ager, is simply an aggregation of appeals, some strong, 
some less strong. ‘The problem is to build up a product 
which has a maximum of powerful appeal for the par- 
ticular field desired, and to know the relative strength of 


164 Masters of Advertising Copy 


each appeal the article has. The average firm knows 
only in a rough way the relative strength of its appeals; 
why not analyze them accurately and fully? 

The usual range of appeals for a product is made up 
of combinations in various degrees of strength of about 
the following: 


(mi) ePricer (7) Recommendation; 

(2) Utility; (8) Taste; 

(3) Convenience; (9) Economy of use; 

(4) Appearance; (10) Prompt availability; 

(5) Service; (11) Reputation and familiarity 
(6) Reliability ; (12) Advertising. 


It has been proven over and over again that salesmen 
will select their own ideas of the strongest appeals, or 
insist that the appeal varies in strength according to the 
prospect he is talking to. They are often encouraged to 
do this; but it is also proven that there is always one fun- 
damentally strongest appeal which is wisest to stress to 
practically all prospects, and through all salesmen and 
advertising. In other words, an analysis for any given 
product will show that certain appeals are supreme; that 
for a certain article appearance may be 60%; reliability 
20% and recommendation 20%, and for another product 
the appeal may bear some other ratio. 

It is, therefore, not theoretical, but highly practical to 
make a searching analysis of the appeals for a product, 
so that they can be rated accurately. It makes the sales 
manual more definite and valuable; it is of immense value 
and importance to the advertising manager and agent, 
and it permits the writing of copy that strikes far closer 
to the bull’s eye in results. 

The analysis should, of course, also be extended to the 
wrapping of an article—to the shape, size, color and 
general appearance of the article as it will look in the 


J. George Frederick 165 


store. In many articles, notably toilet articles, this factor 
rates astonishingly high in sales value. It rates more 
than is suspected in almost all articles. The eye and the 
sense of touch are the mechanisms of the brain that must 
be affected, and if an adverse current of feeling is started 
by a product’s appearance, even strong logic has little 
chance. A few years ago consumer research work was 
done on a talcum, disclosing the heretofore unsuspected 
truth that odor has by far the strongest appeal to women 
in any talc article. New advertising copy based on this 
appeal quickly expanded sales. Yet contrary opinions had 
been held by all who had anything to do with the article. 

It is typical of most articles that a dozen broad claims 
are made for it, and that constant debate goes on between 
salesmen, executives and dealers as to which one has the 
most weight. The good copy analyst easily sees that this 
problem of the relative strength of these appeals is vital 
to his copy campaign, and that facts must be developed 
as to their precise strength, not in the client’s mind, but 
in the consumer’s mind. If sanitation, let us say, is 60% 
of the entire appeal in strength and power, he can intelli- 
gently plan his advertisement so that this strong appeal 
shall never be absent, but shall be related and associated 
to all the other appeals in such a balanced manner as 
will give them all their proper weight, as will cripple 
no single expensive advertisement by merely minor 
appeals, and as will provide a wise rotation of the 
appeals. 

The particularly painstaking copy analyst will also 
make a further test, if his client will permit it. He 
will prepare a varied line of copy, and then with sets 
of proofs conduct a carefully guarded test upon con- 
sumers (so planned that their unconscious judgment and 
not their conscious judgment would be obtained). The 
truly best series of ads can thus be decided upon from 


166 Masters of Advertising Copy 


such analysis. The judgment from a competent test of 
this kind will get 10 to 20% closer to actual fact than 
even the best judgment made purely on opinion. 

It is generally supposed that the public is dormant and 
incapable of indicating its mind; but this is a poor concep- 
tion both of the public and our modern measuring instru- 
ments. No other profession dealing with the human 
being is without its means of measuring reaction, and it 
is absurd in this day of highly developed laboratory 
psychology methods that reliable tests should not be 
obtained in advance of large expenditures of money for 
advertising, since without such tests the relative efficiency 
of an ad is a mere matter of opinion. ‘There are a great 
many advertising campaigns which fail by reason of 
wrong copy; and there is not the slightest reason why 
preanalysis of this copy cannot to a large extent avert 
the mistakes before the expenditure is made. Nowadays 
space costs far too much money to experiment with and 
hold mere “post mortems.’ ‘The results must be at least 
70 or 80% sure in advance if we are to retain the name 
of being practical advertising men, and if the advertising 
profession is to rest upon very permanent bases. An 
engineer, building a longer bridge than was ever built 
before over a tremendously difficult river, is able to calcu- 
late within a reasonable percentage what will happen. 
All advertising, as well as all sales effort, is to a certain 
extent guessing, it may readily be admitted. Construc- 
tion engineers admit the same thing. The thing to do is 
to reduce the ratio of guesswork to the total by every 
known means of obtaining exactness. 


Analyzing Media 


No advertising copy should be written without visualiz- 
ing the medium in which it will appear. To fail in this 


J. George Frederick 167 


is to talk sporting page language to an audience of 
nursing mothers. Especially is this true to-day, when 
periodicals have particularly distinct personalities of their 
own and special followings. 

The plan of campaign in which the medium plays a 
part is the first thing to be studied. This goes back to 
the very core of the campaign object and goal, which, as 
every good advertising man knows, is often a psycho- 
logic or strategic goal. This is illustrated in the tre- 
mendous volume of advertising which a certain well- 
known weekly carries, mainly because it has become a 
commonplace thing to use this medium ‘“‘for dealer 
effect”’ and similar strategic reasons. 

In spite of fulmination about “waste circulation,” 
“duplication,” etc., as used by some advertisers, many 
such purchases are undoubtedly justifiable and profitable, 
from a strategic point of view. The broader a campaign 
policy is, the more sure it is to mean a three-, five- or ten- 
year policy consistently adhered to, in which media are 
considered coolly and fundamentally and copy planned an 
adequate time in advance. 

There is a very considerable temptation in purchasing 
advertising to be an opportunist rather than to operate 
on principle. There are so many enticing ideas sprung, 
so many space bargains peddled, and so many last minute 
offers of exceptional position; there is such a welter of 
ups and downs in business and changes of personnel and 
policy, that advertising plans are buffeted about far too 
frequently for sound economy. The objective changes 
too often; the appropriation is inflated and deflated too 
frequently, and there is no clear picture of the advertising 
plan asa whole. Advertising—it cannot be too often and 
too insistently repeated—sufiers when it is handled by 
opportunists. Advertising is a deeply submerged prin: | 
ciple operating upon the unconscious of the public, slow- 


168 Masters of Advertising Copy 


moving but powerful as the tides. You cannot success- 
fully toy or juggle with so deep-seated a principle. 

The strategy of the effective use of media, coordinating 
with a strategy of sales over a long period, must calculate 
upon long-continued, educational and reiterative steps 
and a desire to build solidly and safely. Like every- 
thing else that is orderly, it must have a logical begin- 
ning, middle and end. A program of advertising should 
have its try-out, preliminary and long-pull stages; it is 
sound to use media in a preliminary period for certain 
strategic elements of purpose; to use other media in the 
middle of the long, full campaign for the hard constant 
labor of education, and to use other media or new media 
at the close of the campaign for the logical last wallop 
and special drive. It is logical, in absolute necessity, to 
trim sails with an eye to the strategy of a breathing spell 
in expenditure; using certain media to create a greater 
impression of activity than the facts warrant. 

The temptation to be a mere bell-wether is very strong 
in the use of advertising media. Because one sees com- 
petitors and others using a certain list of media is far 
from assurance that such a list is best. It is appalling 
how much advertising is written because competitors and 
others are “doing the same.”” Many of the best successes 
in advertising have been made by men whose attitude 
toward media was courageous and based on far-seeing 
policies and clear analysis. ‘Their idea of media was 
individual and correlated to their own thinking. Wrigley, 
of Spearmint fame: Post, of Postum Cereal and others 
built on this principle. The advertiser who “follows 
along’’ is the good medium’s worst enemy, because he 
cannot be appealed to; he is operating upon an imitative 
instinct which is beyond the reach of reason and he can- 
not be shaken loose. Only when he begins to think does 
he become different, and the many excellent media which 


J. George Frederick 169 


are not getting from advertisers the attention they 
deserve could not hope for anything more blessed than 
a greater realization of this fundamental principle in 
medium selection. We would then see some of the super- 
inflated media lose their large and often not wholly 
deserved mass of advertising, and we would witness a 
more logical distribution based upon clear analysis of 
media. 

It is wearisome—very especially so to a man who has 
been in the advertising business a long time, as I have— 
to hear over and over again each year the same old 
debates as to the relative merits of different types and 
classes of media. It is all the question of a merchandising 
situation, the strategy of the campaign and the type of 
article, state of distribution, etc. To one thoroughly 
versed in merchandising tactics it is not alone wearisome, 
but more or less dishonest to glorify or over-emphasize 
one type of media over another, because it indicates a 
woeful lack of study and analysis of the advertiser’s 
problems. 

The president of one of the most brilliant companies 
in the United States, a man who has raced up his sales 
in half a dozen years from half a million to fifteen million 
dollars annually, has as fixed and definite a policy regard- 
ing media as an engineer has measurements and rules of 
orientation. He made his success by working out a broad 
policy, selecting type of media adaptable to his strategic 
policy, and these media made his proposition successful. 
Many of his aping competitors do not to-day know any- 
thing about the general policy behind the campaign. 
The president of this company is a theorist on his sub- 
ject—that of newspaper advertising on a zone basis— 
and his analysis and his method of linking up his adver- 
tising to his sales work have made him successful in his 
plans. He therefore dogmatizes about his plan. Yet 


170 Masters of Advertising Copy 


still another large advertiser is equally dogmatic about his 
success, which was won entirely on magazine advertising. 
Both are in the same field with virtually the same prob- 
lems. It must thus be seen that advertisers do not sit 
down to “analyze media’’—they sit down to make poli- 
cies work and to make their sales campaigns a success. 
The medium is only a tool in the general kit of tools, and 
they use the medium because it fits the job as they lay it 
out. 

Imagine a broad executive working out his campaign in 
consultation with an advertising man. What might be 
said to be the line of questions that would come out? 
They might be somewhat as follows: 

(1) What publication or group of publicatons have 
as their audience the most interested readers, in the 
largest numbers, at the cheapest rate per line or per 
page per thousand, of the kind of people on whom I 
am trying to produce an effect? 

(2) What publication or group of publications, by 
means of the type or size or frequency of the copy I 
intend to use and of the proposition I have to make, will 
exert the most influence upon my distributive and sales 
organization? 

(3) What publication or group of publications, or 
kinds of media, might I use to achieve the necessary auxil- 
iary campaign effects or side pressure or flank movement 
with which to fortify my general campaign and com- 
plete it? 

(4) What publication or group of publications or 
media can provide me with the highest ratio of reader- 
value, based upon the peculiar strength, scope and nature 
of the editorial appeal? 

(5) What media, publication or group of publications 
should I use, and for what period, to perform the pre- 


J. George Frederick 171 


liminary, or psychological, or specialized part which I 
desire them to play? 

(6) How may I be sure of getting my money’s worth 
from them, and how shall I check up their claims? 

(7) How may I so coordinate the work of my sales 
organization and my distributive organization with my 
use of such media so that the largest percentage of the 
readers of my ad may find my representatives, my job- 
bers and dealers on their toes and ready at the moment 
consumers’ interest is highest ? 


And Finally, Strategy 


Considered as the practical sales tool, advertising 
copy is the very heart and center of the particular sales 
strategy which is being operated by any concern. Adver- 
tising copy strategy is, therefore, sales strategy as well; 
often the chief expression of sale strategy by reason of 
its flexibility and wide application. 

I cannot here give full details of advertising copy 
strategy, but would refer to my books ‘‘Modern Sales- 
management”’ and “‘Business Research and Statistics,” * 
wherein are discussed in full detail the matters of mer- 
chandising strategy and the research data on which they 
are erected. 

There are a dozen or more principal lines of sales 
strategy, and these can be listed as follows: 

(1) Strong direct action: a frontal attack, so to 
speak; a smashing use of space and forceful language; a 
direct grappling with the obstacles, a use of sheer power 
and punch. Useful when analysis shows that sheer force 
can do the job; costly and hurtful when the obstacles are 
not of the kind which will yield to force. 

* Modern Salesmanagement, by J. George Frederick, D. Appleton 


& Co., New York, Chapter XIX. Also, Business Research and Statis- 
tics, by J. George Frederick, D. Appleton & Co. 


yA Masters of Advertising Copy 


(2) Indirect effort: when opposing forces are too 
powerful or deep-lying for frontal attack, the situation 
requires attack ‘“‘on the flanks’’; it requires the line of 
copy or the appeal which will be an intermediate step tc 
the desired goal. 

(3) Secret action: this is merely a term for the kind 
of copy wherein one’s real purpose is not evident; where 
the sales plan and purpose must be not alone indirect 
but unobserved; the real purpose being to secure an 
unconscious action. 

(4) Complicated logical series: this is only a more 
intricate line of reasoning for indirect effort; a logical, 
planned series of ‘‘moves,” as in chess, which will inevi- 
tably and necessarily lead to desired results. 

(5) Confusing or “feint” moves: this is a rarer type 
of strategy which in a legitimate way aims to divert 
attention from weaker points while remedying them; or 
to shift the emphasis, or to hide from competitors situa- 
tions which might be taken advantage of. 

(6) Wedge action: this is a method of applying force 
to get results—a method comparable to the lever and 
the fulcrum, or well-known football formations. Con- 
centration on Uneeda Biscuit advertising put over the 
entire “‘N B C” line, when it was not likely that equally 
distributed advertising could do so. 

(7) Defensive action: copy aimed to build up strength 
to resist attack; to ward off competitive criticism or un- 
favorable events or trends. 

(8) Educational strategy: a long pull or short pull 
effort to implant information; to alter a state of mind 
or change habits. 

(9) Time annihilation strategy: a special and deli- 
cate technique of copy which aims to accomplish very 
rapidly what ordinarily requires considerable time. 

(10) Distribution strategy: copy preparation with 


J. George Frederick 173 


the main objective of influencing dealers, securing dis- 
tribution or otherwise using it as a tool in achieving 
desirable ends in distribution problems. 

(11) Good-will strategy: “institutional copy” is a 
name sometimes applied; but the varieties vary. The 
purpose is always the same—primarily to make the 
name, the house and the article better known. 

(12) Domination strategy: this is often sound strat- 
egy in advertising—to “maintain the lead” either by 
weight of volume of advertising; by size of advertise- 
ments, by new developments featured, or by sheer supe- 
riority of quality in advertising copy. 

(13) “Caveat” strategy: a significant plan of adver- 
tising early a new article or invention, especially when 
competition on an equal basis is likely or possible; thus 
“filing a caveat with the public’ on the theory that the 
public gives credit to the originator and first advertiser. 

(14) Quality strategy: the specific all-pervading aim 
being to imbue the public with the feeling and instinctive 
impression of the high quality of the merchandise. ‘This 
is subtle copy preparation, calling for the full range of 
the arts of copy preparation and advertising layout. 

(15) Inquiry strategy: focusing all the power of the 
ad upon the matter of securing a reply. This may be as 
much the aim of the advertiser selling through jobbers 
and dealers, as that of a mail-order house, the “pull” 
being possible by various means such as coupon, booklet, 
sample, prize scheme, etc. 

(16) Economy strategy: it is sometimes necessary or 
advisable to appear to be maintaining a previous volume 
of advertising when the previous appropriation is not 
available; or a new advertiser with small appropriation 
may need strategic handling of space afforded, so as to 
give the impression of larger space. 


174 Masters of Advertising Copy 


For all of these strategic purposes, and for others not 
mentioned here, the use of research is valuable, for 
strategy is a thing which turns upon hairs, being, as the 
dictionary says, a use of finesse. 


IX 


Axioms of Advertising 


Jos—epH Hersert AppeLt. Author and merchant. Born 
Lancaster, Pa., July 19, 1873; A.B., Franklin and Marshall 
College, 1892. Admitted to Lancaster County Bar, 1895; 
Philadelphia Bar, 1892. With Editorial Department Philadel- 
phia Times, 1896-9; with John Wanamaker since 1899; di- 
rector advertising and publicity Philadelphia Store until 1912; 
New York store since 1912; also general assistant to Rodman 
Wanamaker. Author: My Own Story, 1913; Seeing America, 
1916; Living the Creative Life, 1918; The Making of a Man, 
1921. 


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IX 
Axioms of Advertising 


By Joseph H. Appel 


DVERTISING is the “speech” of business. Ad- 
A vertising is to business what language is to man— 
its mode of self-expression. 

A business that will not advertise is both deaf and 
dumb; and as heavily handicapped in the world’s progress 
as a deaf and dumb man. 

Back of speech is thought. Back of thought is mind. 
Back of mind is spirit. Back of business speech is the 
spirit of the business—its individuality. ‘To express this 
individuality fairly and completely is the province of 
advertising. 

Simple, direct, plain speech is most easily understood 
by the greatest number of people. Simple, direct, plain 
language makes the best advertising speech. 

People talk mainly of two things; of themselves, of 
other people. Advertising that is saturated with human 
interest is bound to be most widely read. 

The word ‘‘news,”’ as reflected in our American news- 
papers, has come to mean “human interest.”” News- 
papers tell the news of a community. Stores, being a 
community, must tell their own news in a human interest 
way. 

To present the news of a community, newspapers send 
out reporters to gather the news first hand. ‘To present 
the news of a store, the advertising bureau must send 

177 


178 Masters of Advertising Copy 


out its reporters to gather the store news first hand. 
First hand means at the source. The source of store 
news is the merchandise and the merchandise chief who 
buys it. Efficient advertising requires the writer’s per- 
sonal examination of the merchandise and the hearing of 
the “‘story” of its purchase directly from the lips of the 
buyer who secured the merchandise in the wholesale 
market. Every purchase has its story—tell that story. 

Merchandise is dumb—until seen; then it speaks 
louder than words. ‘To bring people into the store to 
see the merchandise—to speak for the merchandise until 
it can speak for itself—is the first step in advertising. 

Advertising must be fair to the merchandise as well as 
to the people it invites into the store. Advertising must 
‘square up” with the merchandise and with the store. 

To “square up” with the merchandise and with the 
store, advertising must be accurate. To be accurate, 
advertising must be truthful. | 

Advertising is as honest as the man who signs his 
name to it. 

A store is as honest as its advertising. 

Efficiency in advertising is impossible without honesty. 
But honesty is possible without efficiency. Waste in ad- 
vertising is the natural result of dishonesty. 

Honesty in business usually means life; dishonesty 
surely means death. 

Honesty in advertising is not a question of compara- 
tive prices or comparative values. Honesty is never com- 
parative nor relative. Honesty is absolute—it means 
telling and living the truth, the whole truth and nothing 
but the truth. 

In advertising, as in everything else, the people are 
the Court of Last Resort. The people soon begin to 
discount the statements of a store that habitually exag- 
gerates in its advertising. 


Joseph H. Appel 179 


Advertising cannot be made honest by means of law, 
any more than people can be made honest by law. Edu- 
cation only can make advertising and people honest. The 
most that laws can do is to safeguard people against 
fraudulent advertising. 

Stores—and their advertising—reflect the morals, man- 
ners, customs, habits and desires of the community and 
of the age in which they live. The brazen, big-type, 
blatant, extravagant advertising is evidence that we are 
still in the pioneer stage of civilization. Lying advertis- 
ing exists because people of this nature still exist in the 
world. Fawning advertising, anemic advertising exist 
because people of this nature still exist. 

But the successful advertising of the present—and 
what will be the real advertising of the future—is the red- 
blooded, truthful, plain, simple, dignified, cultured, cour- 
teous, common-sense ‘“‘human”’ advertising—because peo- 
ple with these attributes rule the world and make it pro- 
gress. 

Advertising is the creative force in business—the elec- 
tric dynamo that keeps it going,—it literally creates de- 
mand for the things of life that raise the standard of liv- 
ing, elevate the taste, changing luxuries into necessities. 

Advertising is not to sell goods; it is to enable people 
intelligently and economically to buy goods. 

Efficient advertising must take the customer’s view- 
point. ‘The advertiser is counselor for the public. 

The only economic reason for advertising is to make 
more efficient the distribution of merchandise, reducing 
its cost, standardizing qualities and products and stabiliz- 
ing prices. 

Distribution—the distribution of wealth, of natural and 
manufactured products, of people, of property, of edu- 
cation—is the problem of the world to-day. 


180 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Advertising is the greatest aid to distribution yet dis- 
covered by man. 

Advertising becomes a tax upon the people unless it 
aids distribution and lowers the cost of commodities. 

Advertising, when efficient, does aid distribution and 
lowers the cost of commodities, because it becomes the 
million-tongue salesman making possible the multiple 
merchant, who reaches a million people with less cost and 
effort than the pedler or the cross-roads store—the 
father of the modern department store (so-called)— 
could reach one or a dozen people. 

Advertising is, therefore, an investment because it is a 
service,—service to the people. 

In its final analysis, advertising is to serve the public; 
to give information that will help to satisfactory buying; 
to present the true character and personality of the store; 
to represent the store as it is—its merchandise, its ser- 
vice. In doing this, advertising becomes what the store 
is itself—a distinct economic aid to those who will use 
its service, an inspiration to those who will study its spirit, 
an education to those who will understand its message; 
a pioneer in art, in science, in merchandising, in civiliza- 
tion,—a leader in human service. 

The retailer is the natural advertiser. Direct to him 
come the people. Of him they ask questions. Of him 
they buy. Of him they demand a guaranty of satisfac- 
tion. The retailer is the only other party to the deal, 
and the people hold him responsible. 

Retail advertising is born of the people, is for the 
people, and is used by the people more than any other ad- 
vertising. Retail advertising is the people’s guide in their 
every-day living. It reflects their daily needs and desires 
and supplies them. It is the people’s market reports— 
to women, especially, it is what the stock market is to 
men. 


Joseph H. Appel 181 


The newspaper is the natural medium for advertising. 
Distribution of merchandise is most efhicient when con- 
centrated and cooperative, under freedom of competition, 
with just rewards to the most capable. Distribution is 
greatest where the three elements of a sale are densest— 
merchandise, people and money. Newspapers circulate in 
the densest centers of population, where are also congre- . 
gated the largest stores with the greatest column of mer- 
chandise; they are, therefore, the most efficient media for 
all advertising. 

The newspapers that are best for advertising are those 
that will sell merchandise; that are clean, reliable and 
fair; that have the largest circulation and the readers’ in- 
terest developed; that are creative—constructive and not 
destructive; cheerful, not “knockers”; not blindly par- 
tisan; not overrun with advertisements; that stick to their 
jobs; that have a fair rate. 

The prosperity of a community depends upon its retail 
business. Manufacturers can make, and farmers can 
grow, Only as the merchant sells. And merchants can sell 
only as the people buy. When the people buy and the 
merchants sell—when money and merchandise are kept 
in motion—then the whole world is prosperous. 

In the last analysis, all advertisers are merchants; all 
branches of advertising are merchants. Publishers of all 
kinds; advertising solicitors; advertising agents; organiz- 
ers of big business; copy writers,—all are merchants; 
they must sell the goods they advertise, and they must 
distribute them more economically than they could be 
distributed without advertising, or they are building on 
the shifting sands and their houses will go down in ruins. 

If we ever reach the point of “diminishing returns”’ in 
advertising, then advertising will go to the junk pile. 
Advertising must be an asset to business, not an expense. 
Advertising must produce and not consume wealth. 


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X 
Copy First 


KENNETH M. Goope. Advertising writer and editor. For- 
merly associate editor of Saturday Evening Post and of Hearst’s 
International. Later advertising agency experience with firm of 
Goode & Berrien. Now with P. F. Collier & Sons, New York 
book-trade and mail-sales division. Has had the unusual expe- 
rience of having been on both sides of the writing field—editing 
for large mass circulation and advertising to it. 


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xX 
Copy First 
By Kenneth M. Goode 


together along one giant set of poles. Picture these 

poles full of men solemnly burnishing those telephone 
wires, rubbing with pungent aromatic oils, polishing with 
chamois and sandpaper, chittering with joy when their 
highlights flash tiny glints of fire. 

If you would still become a copy man—climb one of 
the poles and join us! 

For there is nothing so absolutely unimportant as copy 
for copy’s sake. Copy is only the telephone wire that 
carries the message: if only it carry the message clearly, 
swiftly, accurately, powerfully, the wire itself may be 
as rusty and bent as an old nail. 

And so, I say, when you find yourself tempted to dash 
off a tricky string of winged words for publication at 
somebody’s expense, or, what is worse, tempted to lecture 
somebody else on how to do it, just grab your manicure 
tools and join us among the telephone wires. 

Not that copy isn’t important! On the contrary, copy 
is the only thing that counts in advertising. Research 
develops facts that may help sell goods; but a hundred 
men in a hundred Fords, filling out questionnaires all day 
long, wouldn’t of themselves sell enough goods to pay 
for their gasoline. Wise choosing of places to put adver- 
tising copy unquestionably enables that copy to sell more 

185 


| all the telephone wires you ever saw strung 


186 Masters of Advertising Copy 


goods; but you could sit and choose media until you were 
black in the face, and never move a boy’s express wagon 
full of toy balloons. Mechanical departments help copy 
find favorable expression; but the most meticulously sym- 
metrical piece of typography that ever lulled a roving eye 
will never turn a nickel, unless it eases home a message 
some real copy writer has cut and hammered until it means 
something very vital to every man who reads it. 

Copy, in one form or other, is the heart and soul of 
advertising. Except as an aid to the preparation of copy, 
or to the extension of copy after it has been prepared, 
everything else is more or less meaningless. Much of the 
unnecessary complication in modern advertising thought 
is due to straying away from that one simple fundamental. 
If copy is good enough, it can succeed without a dollar 
spent on anything except white space to print it in; if 
copy is bad enough, the most elaborate merchandising 
and marketing plans will only pile up the possibilities of 
failure. 

This blunt truth will, I fear, run athwart many able 
men whose generous conceptions of ‘‘advertising’”’ have 
grown to embrace everything—from finding an architect 
for the factory to placing fair-haired boys behind the 
merchant’s sales counters. 

You may remember an old story of the man who pro- 
posed to trade his cow for his neighbor’s bicycle: “I'd 
look fine, wouldn’t I, trying to ride a cow?” was the un- 
gracious answer. ‘‘Yes,’’ returned the proposer, ‘“‘but 
think how I would look trying to milk a bicycle.” 

Respectfully I commend this primitive form of reason- 
ing to any who feel I unduly overestimate the importance 
of copy. Ona pinch, you can easily imagine an advertis- 
ing campaign—mail order, for example—simplified down 
to nothing but copy. But try to think of an advertising 
campaign without copy! 


Kenneth M. Goode 187 


Or try, for instance, to imagine this week’s issue of the 
Saturday Evening Post without any advertising copy, with 
all its great advertising pages, one after the other, show- 
ing blank white space. 

Yet, with a pair of scissors in hand, I turned yester- 
day to the latest issue of the Post, and out of one adver- 
tisement, without touching a printed letter, cut in one 
piece $3,700 worth of blank space! I got $2,500 worth 
out of another, $2,000 out of another; and I could have 
filled a small waste-basket with solid unbroken strips of 
virgin white that different advertisers had bought at 
$1,000 or more apiece. 

Then I turned back to Mr. Lorimer’s able editorial 
page, and searched in vain for $100 worth of wasted 
space. 

Entranced with the eagerness with which advertisers 
paid for white space they didn’t use, I began counting 
words to find out, if I might, what the average advertiser 
paid per word of copy in the space he did decide to util- 
ize. ‘Try it for yourself. In the meantime, I may give 
you this much of a hint: If advertisers could hire famous 
writers at the regular rate they receive from editors, 
you might easily engage Booth Tarkington, George Ade, 
and Irvin S$. Cobb—all three—to write your copy at a 
cost per word less than most advertisers pay per word to 
have it printed in a single advertisement. 

If the advertiser paid for his copy by length, and the 
editor didn’t, this economy in the use of words might be 
more easily understood. But it’s just the other way 
round. Why, then, does the advertiser—who pays for 
his space and not his words—turn his space back into 
white paper, while the editor—who pays for his words 
and not his space—jams his space chuck-full of words and 
pictures? 


188 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Is it possible that the advertiser is not quite sure of the 
importance of his message? 

Does he mistrust the strength and attractiveness of 
his copy? 

Is he so uncertain of real interest that he must mince 
words and sugarcoat his story with thousands of dollars 
worth of white space? 

Or, is it that advertisers, generally unaware of the vital 
importance of good selling copy, and, perhaps, even less 
aware of what constitutes good selling copy, allow their 
message to be determined by the way they want the ad- 
vertisement to look? 

At any rate, as every advertising agency man knows, 
copy, in an astonishing number of cases, is written more 
or less to fit a preconceived layout. The layout, of course, 
is determined by the space. ‘The space is determined by 
the schedule. And the schedule, by the size of the appro- 
priation. And so, in what we advertising men are fond 
of calling the ‘‘last analysis,” the expression of the adver- 
tising message, if not the actual message itself, is far too 
often determined in advance by the approximate sum of 
money available for advertising. 

Suppose—to take an extreme example—a man decided 
to send a telegram. His reasons for sending a telegram 
may be various; he may have heard that telegrams 
are good for business, he may have read so many tele- 
grams that he wants to send one himself, all his com- 
petitors may be sending telegrams, the Western Union 
may have an able solicitor selling telegraphic service— 
or what not. However be it, our man decides he can 
afford to spend, say, $4.63 for telegrams. 

This $4.63 he finds will pay for a night letter to Los 
Angeles. 

Obviously, all he has left to do is to sit down and think 
out what he might like to telegraph to Los Angeles! 


Kenneth M. Goode 189 


And anything he writes will be just about as important as 
the copy of an advertiser who buys his space before he 
knows exactly what he wants to say in it. 

There are a few of us who think no advertiser has a 
moral right to spend money on white space before he has 
a pretty clear vision of what he intends to accomplish 
with it. 

To accomplish anything at all with it, he must first 
get rid altogether of the idea that anybody in the world 
is interested in his goods or what he has to say about 
them, except as they translate what they read into some- 
thing of purely selfish interest. 

If any advertiser doubts this, let him make a test: 
When he starts looking through next month’s magazines 
for his new advertisement, let him stop long enough to 
recollect that every one of the other advertisements he 
skips over so lightly is equally the pride of some other 
advertiser; and that each of this multitude of other adver- 
tisers is, at the same moment, skipping just as lightly all 
the other advertisements in the same enthusiastic search 
for his own. 

The only difference between this group of self-seeking 
advertisers and the ordinary public reading this same 
magazine is that they are looking for something, while 
the public is looking for nothing. But, passively, each 
person who looks through the advertising pages is just 
as self-centered—yjust as keen for his own interests—as 
any of those advertisers. 

The next step, therefore, for our successful advertiser 
is to project himself out of the place of the proud father 
of an advertisement and into the place of the average 
man—that casual reader who, if he is kept interested, 
idles away half an hour on a magazine that would take 
three or four hours to read through hastily. 

Let the advertiser then try to imagine what, if anything, 


190 Masters of Advertising Copy 


he can say to this average man interesting enough—to 
the man—to hold his attention against all other adver- 
tising and editorial attractions long enough to give that 
single proposition thought enough to repay his share of 
the money that advertiser spent to reach him. 

Here, for example, are fair samples of copy for which 
somebody paid $7,000. ‘They are picked practically at 
random, not from one poor inexperienced amateurish 
effort in some country newspaper, but from five different 
high-class advertisements—tremendously expensive words 
of great national advertisers |! 


Those motorists whose appraisal of a car is influ- 
enced by its fitness to reflect their standing in the 
community agree in according custom built closed 
bodies their unqualified approval. 


Far beyond any previous high mark, the new 
extends and amplifies those superiorities of per- 
formance which seem to belong peculiarly to 


It is rare indeed that the best things in life can be 
purchased on a purely bulk value basis. Genuine 
quality is seldom to be gauged by the inch, the ounce, 

_or by a strict price measure. 


Everybody now knows of the tendency of experi- 
enced owners to step up from the class of ordinary 
cars to the proud possession of a good looking, eco- 
nomical, balanced, lightweight, distinctive car of the 
highest resale value. 


These impressions of interior comfort are further 
emphasized when the car gets under way, and you 
experience the admirable balance and buoyancy of 
the new spring suspension. 


Kenneth M. Goode 19] 


Memorize a dozen or so of these lines and try them 
on your wife, your partner, the man next you on the 
train, or even your office boy. 

Just repeat them in a quiet conversational tone. 

See if you can detect any quick glint of interest in your 
listener’s eye, an attentive flash of the ear, an exclama- 
tion, ‘By Jove, that’s true! I’m certainly glad you re- 
minded me of it.”’ 

Why does any one spend thousands of dollars printing 
for distribution among millions of miscellaneous people 
a bunch of words that he can, in five minutes, prove defi- 
nitely won’t hold the interest of the first three men he 
meets on the street? 

The answer is, of course, the words interest him/ 

He is fascinated with his own advertisement. As he 
views his clean white proof gleaming before him in soli- 
tary splendor and pronounces it “O. K.,” he is honestly 
—unconsciously perhaps, but none the less honestly— 
of the opinion that this advertisement is going to look 
to a vast number of people the same as it does to him. 

Just as a beginner in polo is so conscious of the fact 
he is on a horse that he gives little thought to the ball, 
so this average business man adjusts with infinite care to 
his own taste an advertisement intended for an abso- 
lutely different type of reader. 

Thus, men without the slightest real training in theory 
or practise of writing copy, men wise enough to heed ex- 
plicit direction from their lawyers and expert accountants, 
will, nevertheless, with calmest assurance dictate to ex- 
perts just how an advertisement must read and look. 

This subjective element—this very natural idea that 
other people are interested in the things of most interest 
to oneself—costs the business men of the United States 
far more money annually than the nation’s standing army. 

Nothing but years of professional training in the prac- 


192 Masters of Advertising Copy 


tical psychology of advertising enables a man to regard 
copy and layouts before him simply as a sort of photo- 
graphic negative, and so to disregard pretty completely 
what he wants to say for the sake of what he wants his 
readers to do. 

Nobody will deny that the man who pays the bill has 
a perfect right to have his advertisement read anyway 
he likes. Or, like the little girl in the Metropolitan Mu- 
seum, he may simply proclaim, “I don’t know anything 
about Art, but I know what makes me sick!” 

Such a frank recognition of the fact that he is putting 
out an advertisement to please himself—to get a little 
kick out of seeing his own words in print—would im- 
mediately put things on quite another basis. There is, 
in fact, no reason why a successful business man shouldn't 
find legitimate self-expression in this sort of advertising 
just as enjoyably as in yachts, owning professional base- 
ball teams or offering peace prizes. 

But to regard these mandatory messages as “‘copy,”’ 
and then to add insult to injury by calling that copy suc- 
cessful because the company that pays for the advertis- 
ing is successful, is to fall into error as frequent as it is 
dangerously misleading. Weight of circulation is one 
thing; effective copy, quite another. Yet the two are 
_constantly confused. 

Wilbur Wright used to say that he could fly on a 
kitchen table if he could get a powerful enough engine. 
So, regardless of how bad the copy may be, you can make 
some sort of a success of any advertising campaign if 
you spend enough money. So, too, any South Sea Is- 
lander might thrash a golf ball completely and success- 
fully around the golf course with a croquet mallet. But 
the youngest caddy would know better than to call it 
“oolf”” ! 

Successful copy, on the other hand, is like good golf. 


Kenneth M. Goode 193 


It isn’t a matter of brute force. Nor of luck. Your 
trained copy writer knows exactly what he intends doing 
with every word and sentence. He knows his average 
man and just how he is affected by various uses of printed 
words. He knows the few basic motives that govern all 
human action. With certain carefully calculated appeal 
he makes a definite play upon these motives to make large 
numbers of people perform some simple act he himself 
has clearly and definitely in mind. 

All “general publicity” and “institutional” advertising 
to the contrary notwithstanding, it follows inevitably that 
any advertiser who hasn’t in his own mind a pretty clear 
picture of the definite action he aims to bring about in 
the minds of his readers may expect to waste a very large 
percentage of the money he spends on advertising. 

For, reverting to the golf metaphor, your really good 
copy man makes always an attempt to hole out. He is 
not content just to shoot in the general direction of the 
green in the hope that the hole itself will somehow con- 
tribute something that he didn’t! And when golf holes 
do begin to meet your puts half-way, readers will begin 
doing, on account of your advertisement, things you fail 
definitely to ask them to do in words they cannot fail to 
understand. 


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XI 


Making Advertisements Read 


F. R. Fevranp. Born in Kentucky in 1887, educated at 
common schools and State University of Kentucky, served as 
printer’s devil, compositor, reporter, etc., on a country news- 
paper and later worked as compositor at The Roycroft Shop, 
East Aurora, New York, under Elbert Hubbard; then entered 
Hubbard’s advertising department where he remained for about 
two years. He then went to New York and took a position 
in the copy department of George Batten Company in 1910. 
Served fifteen years with George Batten Company, practically 
altogether on service work. Now Director and Vice-President 
of the Company. 


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XI 
Making Advertisements Read 
By F. R. Feland 


men say when some feature of the readability of 

an advertisement was being discussed—‘‘That is a 
matter of opinion and one man’s opinion is as good as 
another’s.” 

In the first place, one man’s opinion is not as good as 
another’s, for the one may be an expert and the other a 
dunce. An opinion is as important as the general re- 
sponsibility of the man who utters it. There are some 
points about the readibility and probable effectiveness of 
advertising that are not matters of opinion, no matter 
who says they are. They are matters of fact, and 
it is into these facts that the following inquiry will be 
directed. 

The few conclusions I have to offer as a means to mak- 
ing advertisements read are the result partially of a logic 
which I consider incontrovertible, and partially are drawn 
from careful observations extending over a period of 
years. Since none of us is infallible—not even the young- 
est advertising man in the business—I will ask you to 
remember that advertising is still a science almost as in- 
exact as medicine or law. 

Let us first inquire into the questions: 

197 


ie years I have been annoyed to hear advertising 


198 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Why do people read at all? 

What is it they read? 

What are the general attributes of the things they 
will not read? 


Now for the first question, ‘‘Why do people read at 
all?” 

At the risk of being almost childlike in my simplicity, 
I am going to say that they read because they have been 
taught to read. Just as soon as the child’s mind has 
developed to a point where he can identify all the letters 
on his building blocks, we teach him to combine those 
letters into words and to be able to identify as words 
combinations which others have made. We send the child 
to school and he is taught to read—all that the child may 
be better able to exercise his instinct of self-preservation. 
We read because it is self-preservation to read. 

Next, what is it that people read? 

You can put it down as a definite rule that people 
read only those things which interest them. You will 
read only that which interests you, and even if I force 
or pay you to read something that does not interest you, 
your lack of interest will create an inhibition that will 
prevent your remembering or being affected by what you 
have read. 

Since you will read only the thing that interests you, 
the question arises, ‘“‘What is the thing that interests 
you?” Let me assure you that no pun is intended when 
I say that the thing that interests you is the thing it is 
to your interest to know. 

The word “interest” is derived from an old word 
‘interess’’ which seems to come from the Latin “‘inter’’ 
and “‘esse,”’ literally ‘‘to be between.” Idiomatically it 
means ‘‘concerned with.” Basically, the word ‘“‘interest”’ 
means ‘‘concerned for private advantage,” ‘“‘biased by 


F. R. Feland 199 


personal considerations.”” We do not need to consider it 
in the sense of premium for the use of money, although 
this meaning is akin to the conception of a private advan- 
tage. 

The verb “‘to interest” is a curiously formed word, but 
nevertheless traceable to the same derivation, and means 
‘to concern,” “‘to invite participation in,’ and to ‘‘en- 
gage,’ “entertain,” or “occupy.’’ In other words, I am 
not forcing an association of meanings when I say that 
the thing which interests you is the thing that holds your 
attention, because it contains matter which you are con- 
scious it is to your advantage to know. 

Now, you may have an interest in a subject or a thing 
for a number of reasons, but practically all of them trace 
back to the elemental law of self-preservation. 

The basis of interest is in self-preservation. Few of us 
hope that we can avoid our taxes any more than we can 
avoid death, so we accept taxation stoically and can 
scarcely be persuaded to read an article on taxation or an 
editorial on the National Budget. Family affairs come 
closer to us—we want to get along with our wives and 
husbands; we don’t want to get caught if we stray from 
the paths which they would have us tread, and it is in- 
stinct of self-preservation, after all, that accounts for the 
story of a divorce case being on the first page of your 
newspaper and Senator Watson’s remarks to the Ways 
and Means Committee on the inside sheets. 

If we examine the general attributes of the things which 
only a minority of people read, we see that they are 
things far removed from their problem of self-preserva- 
tion. For it is not self-preservation to attempt to read 
everything. That cannot be done. It has been said of 
the Vatican Library that it contains so many different 
volumes that a child could begin reading these books as 
they come on the shelves and read from daylight to dark- 


200 Masters of Advertising Copy 


ness every day for a normal span of life and never get 
out of the first alcove. 

There must be a discrimination; hence there must be a 
basis for discrimination and I submit that we automati- 
cally. only read those things which minister to our self- 
preservation through our need for— 


Information 
Beauty 
Entertainment 


Information.—We constantly seek information as to 
saving time, avoiding dangers that others have encoun- 
tered (hence the popularity of sensational news), 
personal safety (feeding our hunger for adventure by 
the vicarious process of reading in news and fiction of the 
exploits of others), saving labor, making money. We 
thirst for more information about all the devices that min- 
ister to our greed, our vanity, our fears, our desire for 
luxury. We seek more information about such social, 
political, philosophical and religious ideas as our impres- 
sions and experiences have awakened in us. 

Beauty—We may admit that the love of beauty is 
more or less inherent, and if we admire a picture we will 
read its title. If the picture tells a story we are inclined 
to read a little of the story. “Then, too, about one person 
in twenty has a word sense and will read beautiful poetry 
and prose out of sheer delight in the elegance of com- 
position. ‘This is not recommended for advertising text, 
however, and just here I want to say that while rhetoric 
is a great study, a rhetoric for advertising copy writers 
has never been written. For rhetoric as taught in the 
schools and colleges treats fine writing as an end in itself. 
To the advertising copy writer, good writing is not an 
end, but a means to an end, and that end is the sale of an 


F. R. Feland 201 


article, an idea or a service. Advertising writing is a 
means to effect a sale of something. In the advertising 
rhetoric that I hope some day to write there will be no 
force but clearness; no emphasis but clearness; no ele- 
gance but clearness,—there will be no god but clearness, 
and clarity will be its prophet. 

Entertainment.—This we must have or we become 
morbid. Even a comic strip which has no purpose 
but to amuse is interesting because it is founded upon 
the difficulties which human beings encounter and the 
futility and incompetence of their attempts to cope with 
situations in which they find themselves. The basic fun 
in Mr. Charles Chaplin’s pantomime is his utter incom- 
petency to meet any situation and his complete inability 
to cope with conditions either natural or unexpected. 

I do not admit that it is the function of an advertise- 
ment, however, to entertain, because I do not believe that 
advertisements are approached by readers seeking mere 
diversion of spirits save for the limerick and jingle styles 
of advertising (dangerous tools in the hands of the 
neophyte). ‘The use of entertainment in the reading mat- 
ter of advertising should be handled with extreme care. 

The things that people read may be again classified 
in the order of proved interest. People read news more 
than any single thing. Next comes fiction. As basic 
factors of interest, these two may even be included under 
one head, as News and Fiction. 

When news and fiction are combined, they so far out- 
weigh the popularity of articles on history, travel, sci- 
ence, criticism, music, religion and philosophy that no 
compilation of actual relationship is necessary. 

Indeed, the majority of people receive most of their 
history, travel, scientific and philosophical information 
when it is sugar-coated in the form of fiction, as in the 
historical novel, the scientific detective story or in such 


202 Masters of Advertising Copy 


books as Main Street, which is a fictionized, sex-seasoned 
study in social ethics. 

Now, having analyzed the reading taste of a mass pub- 
lic, we are at the point of applying the results of this 
analysis to advertising construction. 

Take these precepts in your memory: When you start 
to write an advertisement, assume absolute indifference 
on the part of your reader. The word “indifference” 
says it. He is not interested; he is not predisposed; he 
is not hostile; he is not friendly to what you have to say. 
He is 100% indifferent. 

In the past, when I have made this statement, I have 
had it challenged, largely on the basis that it was not 
entirely clear to the challenger just what was meant by 
the statement that a reader’s attitude toward any given 
advertisement was at the outset absolutely indifferent. 
I will take the trouble here to attempt to make perfectly 
clear what I mean. 

As a unit in the general public, you never search 
through a magazine or a newspaper to find any particular 
advertisement. A few women may do this, with depart- 
ment store advertising; in this case they are not looking 
to see what the advertiser has to say but are looking to 
see if he is saying something about what they want to 
buy to-morrow. ‘The actual message that an advertiser 
has for you means nothing until you have begun reading 
it. In looking through a national magazine, you are not 
in the least concerned as you turn page 33 with what 
may be on pages 34 and 35. 

Again, assume that you are a manufacturer of baking 
powder, let us say, and that you have decided to do a lot 
of national advertising. Tell any friend not interested 
in advertising or in your business, that you are about to 
begin national advertising of your baking powder, and his 
natural rejoinder will be ‘‘Zat so? I expect it will cost 


F. R. Feland 203 


you a lot of money. What are they getting now for a 
page in the Saturday Evening Post?” We may even ask 
how much money it will cost and express a hope that it 
will pay you, but he will never turn bright, expectant eyes 
and inquire what it is you are going to say in your copy. 
He will not for an instant think of your ‘“‘going out to 
buck Royal” or advise with you as to the lessons that may 
be learned from what Ryzon did and did not do. 

The only people who will be in the least interested in 
what your copy is to be or in the media you are going to 
use will be advertising agencies and men who have space 
to sell, and they will be interested for reasons that touch 
precisely upon the definition of interest given in forego- 
ing paragraphs. I will repeat the statement that the pub- 
lic is entirely indifferent to what any advertiser is going 
to say next week, next month or next year. 

Your attention device catches the reader’s eye. This 
device may be size, shape, picture or what not; now you 
want him to read and to continue reading. 

You must work entirely from his needs,.his likes or his 
dislikes. “There is no drama, there is no interest in adver- 
tising that does not have its roots in the need of some per- 
son for something, or in the fact that the person likes 
or dislikes a certain thing or certain ways of doing things. 

The simple retail store copy says— 


‘Fashionable strap pumps in gray suéde 
$8.00—all sizes”’ 


and that is enough because they are addressing the woman 
who needs shoes, who needs fashionable shoes, who likes 
gray suede shoes she has seen, and whose foot may be 
large, small or medium. It ignores the woman who 
hasn’t $8.00. They will get her next week when they 
reduce them to $5.95. 


204 Masters of Advertising Copy 
National advertising is different. It says: 


“The makers of the finest blankets in America 
tell you how to wash them.” 


There is news about your needs and all it has to do is 
to tell you what it promises to tell you and so long as 
it is doing this a woman with blankets to wash will read 
until her credulity is strained. 

I noticed an advertisement to-day headed “fA Smiling 
Baby.” That headline was founded on one rule of 
human likes and dislikes I referred to. We like smiling 
babies: we don’t like crying babies. For that reason I 
call it good. 

The next precept to remember is—People are not in- 
terested in a one-sided pleading. ‘They are willing to take 
sides; they are willing to take your side if you raise an 
issue, but do not, in the guise of argument, offer a con- 
tention against which there is no resistance. 


The oldest muslin mill in America”’ 
means very little. 


“Does 80 years’ experience making muslins 
mean anything?” 


raises an issue. 

If it is possible to get news value into your story, do it. 
It is possible more often than you think. The reporter 
writes as though the thing were taking place as he wrote 
it. Have you noticed that? ‘Their headlines say: 


‘German Empress Dies in Exile” 
“Giants Win” 
‘Train Hits Auto” 


F. R. Feland 205 


Always the present tense. Use it wherever you can 
and, above all, write the thing you write as though noth- 
ing of the sort had ever been written before. Keep in 
your own mind the illusion that you are saying the thing 
for the first time. ‘That will almost add news value to 
the statement that the Eastman Kodak Company makes 
camera films. 

Keep constantly in mind your reader’s needs, his likes 
and dislikes. Write about these things or not, as the 
situation may require, but never let any other point dom- 
inate your conception of the thing you are writing about. 
Think of your goods as things which the reader needs, 
never as something you want to sell. 

Just here it will be helpful to consider that all merchan- 
dise from a copy point of view comes into one of these 
classes: 


Goods that people don’t want to buy 

Goods that people want to buy 

Goods that are in a state of transition from class 
one to class two. 


People don’t want to buy anything that is a part of 
something else. They don’t want to buy blank paper, 
filing cabinets, shoe strings, underwear. 

They want to buy phonographs, automobiles, candy, 
jewelry. When they dream of being rich, they dream of 
spending money for such things. ‘That is a good test. 
Is the longing to be rich due in part to the desire to be 
able to buy plenty of the things you have to sell? Young 
women do not marry rich old men in order to buy ice 
boxes. ‘They think of theater tickets, furs and Newport 
villas. 

There are goods in the transition stage, such as lino- 
leum, cord tires, fine house-heating equipment, etc., that 


206 Masters of Advertising Copy 


advertising is changing from a dull necessary purchase to 
a luxurious and attractive possession. Copy must be 
governed accordingly as to length and the intensity of 
the interest appeal. Long copy can be made interesting 
about any new thing,—anything which the race is using 
for the first time. It is hard to make long copy interest- 
ing about something which humans have bought for many 
generations and for identically the same reasons. You 
can safely risk long copy on a vacuum cleaner, whereas 
long copy on a hat or a lock would be tiresome. 

The ideal advertisement from the hired writer’s point 
of view is not written and probably never will be written. 

For the ideal advertisement must inform and so please 
the reader that he enjoys airing this information to others 
in word of mouth advertising. In addition, it must make 
him feel an impulse to buy something. 

Also, this advertisement must please the advertiser, 
and this it is unlikely to do because the things about pins 
that interest the maker of pins are usually things that 
the casual reader would rather he told someone else about. 

Such facts as I have mentioned here may be helpful ° 
to the man who is writing copy on a salary for some other 
man who is paying the bill. The man who is having copy 
written for him feels, not unnaturally, that he wants it 
written to please him and he is not going to be shaken 
from that view by anything but facts. If you get into a 
discussion of opinions you are going to lose in nine cases 
out of ten, because his opinion has more weight than 
yours. You must be able to show that your writing is 
fitting his goods to human needs,—related to established 
human likes and dislikes, and for those reasons only can 
be expected to interest folks in his goods. 


XII 
Copy Don'ts 


J. K. Fraser went into advertising immediately after leaving 
college. His first job was with Ward & Gow, street-car 
advertising in New York; next Assistant Advertising Manager 
of the National Biscuit Company, next with the Mahin Adver- 
tising Agency at Chicago; next with the Street Railways Ad- 
vertising Company of New York. He left them to join The 
Blackman Company, fourteen years ago. He is now President 
of The Blackman Company. He originated the famous “Spot- 
less Town” jingle years ago. 


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XII 
Copy Don'ts 
By J. K. Fraser 


Don’t start to use the facts until you separate 
the important from the unimportant. 

Don’t fix your own opinion of the value of a fact 
until you have tried it out on average people. 

Don’t try to gather all your copy ideas inside the four 
walls of your office. Get out. Mix with the trade and 
with the public. You will save time. 

Don’t assume that all your useful copy facts are bound 
up in merchandise. Some of the most successful adver- 
tising campaigns talk mainly about the service behind 
the product. 

Don’t miss taking in an occasional sales convention. 
It will stir up your thoughts. 

Don’t overlook the problems of the advertiser’s sales 
force. They may furnish the vital clue to your advertis- 
ing. 

Don’t expect an engineer to be lucid. Keep patiently 
at him. In time you will discover what he is driving at. 

Don’t assume that your reader is sitting before you in 
a buying frame of mind. He may be half asleep. He 
may be worrying about his own troubles. In either case, 
you will have to hook him hard with some quick point of 
interest. 


D>. start to write until you have the facts. 


209 


210 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Don’t fail to make a special study of headlines. The 
headline makes or breaks many an advertisement. 

Don’t imagine that a short text solves the problem 
of getting a reading. 

Don’t forget that the public is chiefly interested in its 
own troubles. 

Don’t talk about your product as if it were in the fac- 
tory. The public won’t go there to see it. 

Don’t talk about your product as if it were in the retail 
store. So long as it is the dealer’s property, it won't 
give the public much service. 

Don’t forget that the product’s real advantages come 
out inuse. Talk about your product in use. 

Don’t fail to bring out the virtues of your product in 
meeting some trouble common to your possible buyers. 

Don’t leave your product to prove its own case in use. 
In many lines only an expert can tell the good from the 
bad. Explain the merits which are not obvious. 

Don’t expect your public to read successive advertise- 
ments, unless each in turn contains some fresh bit of in- 
teresting information. 

Don’t expect ‘‘delicious” to sell candy. Almost any 
candy is delicious. 

Don’t expect ‘“‘nourishing’’ to sell food. Most foods 
are nourishing. 

Don’t expect ‘‘warm”’ to sell overcoats. Almost any 
overcoat is warm. 

Don’t expect “‘becoming”’ to sell hats—half your read- 
ers will know it is hopeless. 

Don’t talk too much about what your product is. What 
it does is more important. 

Don’t imagine that your reader has never heard good 
claims about articles similar to yours. Choose a line of 
thought which will reawaken his tired interest. 


J. F.. Fraser 211 


Don’t address your message to the thin air. Talk to 
real people. 

Don’t let familiarity with your subject lead you into 
technical terms which the green reader doesn’t under- 
stand, 

Don’t get discouraged when the ideas fail to flow. 
Keep on trying. The happy thought may wake you up 
in the middle of the night. 

Don’t exaggerate—unless you are willing to plant mis- 
trust. 

Don’t expect to get a fair-minded hearing, if you em- 
ploy unfair claims and phraseology. 

Don’t whine. State the facts and trust to the reader’s 
sound judgment. 

Don’t figure that any product of itself makes a tame 
subject for advertising copy. A good writer can put a 
thrill into the nebular hypothesis. 

Don’t assume that people won’t read long advertise- 
ments. Rather admit to yourself ‘I don’t know how to 
be interesting.” 

Don’t imagine that any combination of words will take 
the place of a real thought. 

Don’t look down on Rhetoric textbooks. They hold 
many valuable practical pointers on force, clearness and 
precision. 

Don’t fall back on the word ‘“‘best.”’ It’s a sign you 
are slipping. 

Don’t consider your job finished when you have brought 
out the merits of the product. Make your reader like 
the Company which offers it. 

Don’t convince your reader and leave him guessing at 
where he can buy. 

Don’t lay too much stress on the value of a trade-mark 
figure. By the time it gets established, it is liable to give 
a chestnut flavor to the whole advertisement. 


A BY Masters of Advertising Copy 


Don’t work too hard over a trade-mark style of letter- 
ing for your display line. The trade-mark style will never 
make or break a campaign. 

Don’t waste too much time over slogans. Most of the 
notable advertising slogans cropped up as happy phrases 
in copy. Few have sprung out of cold-blooded thinking. 

Don’t agonize over a distinctive type for your text 
matter. If it is too distinctive, it will hinder reading. 
If it is quickly legible, its individuality will be scarcely 
noticed. 

Don’t quarrel with the artist. If you reason with him, 
he will come around—or perhaps he is right. 

Don’t take too seriously the criticisms of the star sales- 
man. If you want to see what he really knows, ask him 
to write an advertisement for you. 

Don’t put the advertiser in a position where he sits in 
cold judgment on your copy. Make sure you are men- 
tally together before he looks at the words. 

Don’t be fooled by dumb advertising which has suc- 
ceeded. Look behind the scenes for expensive sampling, 
clever sales work, an extraordinary product or some other 
important factor which turned the trick. 

Don’t figure that you have rounded out your experi- 
ence till you try copy dictation. It saves time. It stimu- 
lates a flow of thought. It runs out too long, but cuts 
down easily. 

Don't become hide-bound by rules—even these. 


XIII 
W anted—By the Dear Public 


CHARLES ADDISON PARKER. Born in 1873, in London, 
England. Educated at Whitgift School, Croydon, Surrey, 
England, and came to this continent in 1891. For a few years 
he was in the Hudson Bay Company’s service at Winnipeg, 
Canada, and in 1901 moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he 
joined the Curtis Company, a direct-by-mail advertising agency 
which became one of the very prominent houses in that field in 
the middle west. Mr. Parker became widely known for his 
fund of unusual ideas and has written and created advertising 
for many representative concerns. Mr. Parker, some years 
ago, decided to go into free lance writing and is located per- 
manently in New York. 


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XIII 
W anted—By the Dear Public 
By Charles Addison Parker 


wonderful bits of information . . . confidential 

messages (otherwise called Advertisements) are 
valuable, I believe, as reachers-of-the-Public, in propor- 
tion as they are informed by that Spirit of Poetry which 
is the essence of Reality. 

“But Things . . . just the ordinary things that are ad- 
vertised . . . have no special sense of poetry about 
them,’’ says some one. 

And yet they have when we run across them in the 
Bible, haven’t they? I find thousands of references in 
the Bible to the commonest things of life: a mustard 
seed, interest on money, loaves of bread, yokes of oxen, 
coats and shoes and olive oil and honey and sparrows 
and houses and fig trees and sheep and vineyards; and 
~each one charged with that sense of mystery and poetry. 

Who marked all these things down and made them 
“common” anyway? Aren’t chairs and tables made a 
certain height and width because God made man a certain 
stature? Isn’t this very sheet of paper on which I write 
of a certain texture and adaptability and convenience to 
the size of the human hand? Aren’t we touching divine 
mysteries when we strike a match, or answer the tele- 
phone, or add up a column of figures? 

Moreover, the heart of the race recognizes these real- 

215 


‘(Bee commands .. . delightful invitations... 


216 Masters of Advertising Copy 


ities, feels them. The common people have a deep sense 
of the divinity of common things, are immediately touched 
at a reference to this divinity, are ready to be touched 
more than the sophisticated would admit. 

What a marvelous heritage that sense of Reality is, 
too! Who'd ever want to let go of one whiff of it? And 
how generally and tremendously we all share it! 

Pungent Reality! Let the nerveless have Nirvana, but 
most of us, at least, will vote to go right on gloating over 
this dear old full-flavored, rough-and-tumble world where 
fire is hot and ice cold, and water wet, and wind blustery, 
and night dark, and every dawn a miracle! 

Of course we will! 

O, the foods we’ve tasted! . . . O, that first bite into 
a ripe Stilton cheese! . . . then our first encounter with 
a planked steak a la Sam Ward... and our first 
draught of Guinness’s stout along with a dozen blue- 
points! . . . and lamb and green peas and browned pota- 
toes and mint sauce! . . . and Columbia River salmon! 
. . - Lhou, Bill-of-Fare! Noblest of human documents! 

And then the sights we’ve seen! Castles and water- 
falls, valleys and mountains. And the rare and costly 
fabrics and silks and brocades and velvets we’ve touched} 
And the fragrant and beatific odors our noses know! 
Aye, and the swinging, ringing melodies we’ve joined our 
voices in, and marched to, and danced to, and listened to, 
with the parted lips of entrancement ! 

What a world! Reality, did we say? Nay, let’s put 
the g back in, where it used to be in the olden days, and 
talk about Re-g-ality. For Regality it is, Squires and 
Dames, that’s coming over the hilltops, in this new Golden 
Age, to bless us all and make each of us a king and queen 
in his or her own right. 

It has always seemed to me that, of all men of the 
pen, we, writers of advertisements, have, at once, the 


Charles Addison Parker 217 


finest chance, and the strongest urge, to put this deep 
feeling of reality into these bits of writing we do about 
Things. 

How significant things are to people! The peaty 
smell of Scotch tweeds . . . the little shoe that a baby 
has worn’ Fava pipes. an armchair. <2: a clockion 
a mantel ... a vase that has held flowers . 1°. the 
flowers she put there! 

And isn’t writing—of which advertising is one depart- 
ment—in itself, one of the most marvelous gifts and pow- 
ers? And don’t the sheep, the loaves, the cloth, the 
olive trees of life, the coats of many colors, deserve as 
fine and as vivid and as effective writing-about as will 
stir folks deeply? 

Won’t it be delightful when our every-day advertise- 
ments are informed by this spirit of worth and charm, 
so that our magazines and newspapers are dotted and 
gay with poetical allusions to the furniture and fixings of 
life and the ways and means of fitting them to our af- 
fairs? 

Money, too—and the spending of it—is a_heart- 
throbbing poetical affair. Ask mother. She knows. 

Here’s the little bit of money Dad brings home on 
Saturday night. . . . To Mother’s way of thinking, a 
dozen kindly enough, but very hungry wolves are lying in 
wait for it ... the Butcher, the Baker, the Milkman, 
and all the other bandits... . 

‘Seems to me I have to pay it all out as soon as it 
comes in!’’ she says. All the more reason, of course, why 
she feels the keenest sense of responsibility that every 
purchase shall satisfy her wish for the family’s life-en- 
richment. ‘There’s so little left over for luxuries. And 
each luxury,—if it’s only a pair of silk stockings, or even 
a jar of marmalade,—should have “‘delight’”’ wrapped up 
with the package. She’s just as keen to understand and 


218 Masters of Advertising Copy 


improve the spiritual standards of her family life as you 
are to improve the morale and vision of your business. 
She wants to make right choices. 

Someone is going to write a play or a movie about the 
Pay Envelope one of these days, and we’ll all go to see it 
and get a great deal more insight into what “consumer 
demand”’ means, translated into terms of life. Here are 
tears, sacrifices, sleepless nights; here are thoughtful- 
nesses, sharp clashes between members of families, dis- 
appointments, little triumphs, a constant, never-ceasing 
series of dramatic situations, more poignant, more inspir- 
ing, by far, than any of these pretty little plays we can 
see, between eight-thirty and eleven o’clock any night on 
Broadway. So, why not let’s make our advertisements, 
which have all to do with the spending of this precious 
pay envelope, dramatic, as well as poetical? 

Let’s even drop several pegs below dear and intelli- 
gent ‘‘Mother”’ in the purchasing scale. Let’s be, for the 
nonce, a little housewife in a cheap little Harlem apart- 
ment. To-day’s a big day with her. Six chairs in a very 
ugly color of golden oak, a table and a hallrack to match, 
have just been unloaded from an instalment house. 

‘Pretty prosaic picture!’’ we say. That’s only be- 
cause we’re blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other. 
Why, that cheap furniture is mysteriously ennobled for 
her, and always will be, because her Jim took a job as 
night-porter rather than lie idle. And it’s his hard- 
earned money and his boundless affection that’s coming 
up those steep stairs as golden-oak furniture that you and 
I would light the kitchen stove with. Therefore, shall 
not the advertising, even of cheap furniture, be written 
with the pen of feeling? ‘‘Make Mary a lady!” has 
sold lots of pianos. 

And how often we advertising writers have fallen over 


this old stumbling block of a word ‘“‘Merchandise.” ‘This 


Charles Addison Parker 219 


package of rolled oats? ... this is not merchandise, 
this is food for six hungry children. This player-piano? 

. this is something for a lonely man to lean his soul 
against and listen to the melodies she used to play. This 
bed? . . . why, friends, this is not merchandise... 
this is a sacred thing! Children will be born init... 
men and women may die in it! 

Can’t we then, and isn’t it desirable that we should, 
and won’t we be happier, if we take thoughtful care. 
when we write these condensed eulogies, these prose 
poems about the goods we make and sell—these Adver- 
tisements—that we write them in that Dear Language 
of Feeling that we all can understand? In words that 
flow from the heart, not from the fountain pen? 

‘‘Feeling,’’—aye, there’s the universal key that fits all 
hearts. And all pocketbooks. 

This very fountain pen of yours, Mr. Waterman, feels 
just about the same in any hand. Your Beechnut Bacon, 
Mr. Arkell, slips as succulently down a miner’s throat in 
the Rockies as it does down a picknicker’s in the Catskills. 

Catholic or Protestant, Republican or Democrat, 
Spinster or Divorcée, Poet or Peasant, give them all the 
sense, the feeling of this new thing of yours being already 
an old friend. Create that want which tells them that 
they’re missing something out of life so long as they’re 
without it. Write a poem-ad of the pleasure of buying 
it and having it, and how long will it be before they’re 
going to satisfy that want? 

“They?” . .. There I go again, saying “they” when 
I should say ‘‘we,” forgetting that we’re all just “the 
Dear Public” . . . and have been since the moment the 
good old Doc came running, with his little black bag, in 
response to our first tiny “want ad.” 

We may all have stopped being other things such as 
scholars and clerks and bookkeepers and traveling sales- 


220 Masters of Advertising Copy 


men and Directors on Boards and church-wardens; but 
we’ve never once, even in our most romantic flashes, 
stopped being the Dear Public; have we? 

So, let’s all agree to can the High Hat and the Lor- 
gnette, at least as far as advertising is concerned, and talk 
straight American, permeated with Love and Good 
Wishes for each other. 

Let’s advertise to each other so that we'll all enjoy 
it and have a good time out of it. If any of us manufac- 
ture anything and want the others to know how good it 
is, let’s get something human across about it, in our first 
twenty words, and go right on being human about it till 
we're through. 

Expressed in terms of a Want Ad, here ’tis: 


WANTED 
by the Dear Public! 
PLEASE, Mr. Advertiser, be my friend! . 


Then you can advertise to me in a way that will do 
something wonderful for me. And I'll repay your 
kind interest a thousandfold! 

PEL Mis PORTES...\...) Pell me aboutea 
picnic on a hilltop and the Girl who put English mus- 
tard in the sandwiches because that was the way the 
Boy liked them. . . . Tell me about Daddy carv- 
ing a boat for his little boy with the new knife he 
bought at the hardware store just for that... . 
Tell me about the small girl who cried every time 
she brought home her report card, and how pas- 
teurized milk changed her school life into a song. 

. . And about the man who never married be- 
cause he brought up his widowed sister’s children, 
and about the tear that glistened in his eye when 
he heard “Dream Faces” on the Victrola. .. . 

GIVE ME a lump in my throat once in a while. 


Charles Addison Parker 221 


A little poetry! . . . Life’s so full of it and your 
scrubbed and polished advertisements are so empty 
of it! ... Please give me more to hope for, 
more to believe in, more to love. Don’t you know 
that this is the kind of thing that gets me? You 
should. . . . Everything I do proves it. 

LOOK how I crowd to the Movies, paying my 
way, whereas I stay away from Art Museums and 
other places that invite me free because they seem 
aloof and cold. . . . Look how hard I fall for 
Will Rogers and Elsie Janis and Norman Rockwell 
and Mary Pickford and O. Henry; and anyone and 
anything that'll make me feel ten degrees more 
human, that'll make me laugh a little, cry a little, 
take sides a little, that’ll give me something I love 
to remember. . . . Aren’t there any people like 
these in the advertising business? . . . People 
wor iavem.livedi) on wmy street: *. 2) People; 
maybe who came from big families, and did chores 
when they were little? ... And had measles, 
and mumps? ... And knew what it was to 
make a mighty small income go a long, long 
way? ... They're the kind of people I can 
understand. ‘They know I am pressed with a lot of 
cares and worries. ‘They'll delight in starting right 
in to be human with me in the first twenty words. 


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XIV 
Advertising Copy and the So-Called “Average 


W oman” 


Mrs. CuHrRIsTINE FrepericK. Born 1883; graduate of 
Northwestern University. Was first to work out application 
of scientific management principles to home management, em- 
bodied in articles in Ladies Home Journal, later in The New 
Housekeeping, Doubleday, Page & Co., and now translated 
into French, German, Polish, Scandinavian, and Japanese. 
Founder, 1910, of Applecroft Home Experiment Station, 
Greenlawn, Long Island. Consulting household editor of La- 
dies Home Journal for many years; now household editor 
Designer Magazine and of Sunday magazine sections of all 
Hearst newspapers in twenty-six cities. Lecturer; founder of 
the New York Advertising Women’s League. Author of 
Household Engineering and many booklets; consultant for 
famous advertisers and writer of special advertising copy for 
food and household articles. 


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XIV 
Advertising Copy and the So-Called “Aver- 


age Woman” 


By Mrs. Christine Frederick 


hole in the World-Beater Advertising Agency, his 
unnecessarily serious eyes peering steadily out of 
his shell-rim headlights. 

“IT must key this copy to the Average Woman,” he 
muttered, repeating the instructions solemnly given him. 
‘But who and what in the devil is the Average Woman?” 
Beads of intellectual perspiration (there is such a thing) 
stood forth on his Woolworth Building brow. Some- 
how his projector wouldn’t work—he couldn’t throw on 
the screen of his imagination this mythical Average 
Woman. 

He took his troubles to his copy chief. 

“Get on the train,” ordered that Napoleon of Imagina- 
tion, ‘“‘and go to Bean Center, Texas; to Paris, Kentucky, 
to The Fair in Chicago, and to Child’s Restaurant. You'll 
see her, all right.” 

He did, or thought he did. Just as, no doubt, did Ed- 
ward Bok, when editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal. He 
used to tell of how he once passed by a little cozy house 
in a small Ohio town and saw standing in the door a 
woman, whom he always afterwards visualized as the 
average woman for whom he was editing. 

225 


‘| ae young copy writer sat in his 6x8 foot cubby- 


226 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Illusion, abstraction, guess-work, intuition—all appear 
to have their part in creating the average woman for those 
who are trying to reach her. Can she be more accurately 
studied? Is there some way to stick her on a pin, like a 
butterfly and put her under a microscope? We've got 
to know more about her—‘‘mass appeal’ is more and 
more a necessity, not only via advertising, but even by 
radio. Psychology tells us something about human be- 
ings in general, but Prof. Thorndyke of Columbia Uni- 
versity has said there are no really authentic differences 
between men and women, as far as psychology knows, ex- 
cept possibly a greater emotionality. Which may be true, 
but we who make a specialty of understanding women cer- 
tainly know that women haveemany characteristics purely 
feminine which must be considered when you advertise to 
them. 

Our heroine, the much-worshipped and sought-after 
Average Woman, to whom we hope to sell our beans, 
cold cream, soup, talcum, spaghetti, chewing gum, wash- 
ing machine or automobile, must at all costs be prevented 
from going to the store and saying, merely: 


Give me a can of beans! 

Give me a jar of cold cream! 
Give me a can of soup! 

Give me a box of talcum! 

Give me a pound of spaghetti! 
Give me some chewing gum! 

I want to see a washing machine! 
I want to look at an automobile! 


It is our romantic aim, the job we give our waking 
hours to, that when she enters the grocer’s, she may say 
without the slightest degree of hesitancy: 


Mrs. Christine Frederick 227 


Give me Van Camp’s Beans! 
A jar of Daggett & Ramsdell’s, please. 
Three cans of Campbell’s tomato soup 


etc., etc. 

If we are to spend so many millions to reach Milady 
Average, we should be willing to spend money and time 
understanding her. The average woman’s mind is fre- 
quently not reached at all by very expensive advertising 
campaigns. Some of it is pathetically over her pretty 
head, and some more of it is well under her pretty feet, 
so poorly is it aimed. (Nor, as I shall presently show, is 
it aimed any better at women who are not pretty.) In- 
sufficient time, attention or money are spent to analyze 
the so-called ““Average Woman” herself. She invariably 
is the result of a fantastic, often distorted picture devel- 
oped in the mind of the individual who conceives her. 
The picture is only in his mind, and is the result of what- 
ever he can conjure up mentally. 

Frankly, now, what does the average business man 
know about the average housewife? Many do not even 
pretend to know or to care about finding out. Others 
make quaint efforts to learn by asking their stenographers 
or their wives—and getting about as unbiased an opinion, 
to quote a recent writer in the Saturday Evening Post, 
“as the testimony of a dog owner in a bite case.”’ 

Ludicrous errors are made in merchandising as a re- 
sult; not alone in copy, but in the merchandise itself. I 
have a junk room in an out-building which I call “the 
cemetery.” It contains devices which during a dozen 
years have been sent me. It is a weird and mournful col- 
lection, and the claims for them no more deceive an 
intelligent, discerning woman. Many makers of good 


articles, on the other hand, are hiding their light under a 
bushel. 


228 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Why don’t more advertisers make a practical, objective 
research of women and their reactions to a particular ar- 
ticle or plan? Why don’t they aim to learn more about 
the problems and point of view of the average house- 
wife? 

Is there really such a thing as an average woman? To 
flatly and finally say ‘‘no” would be one of the most un- 
kind things to do, for what young hero of the advertising 
world likes to have his illusion shattered, when he has, 
throughout the years, built up for himself such a beautiful 
Pygmalion? Would it not be a most deadly shock for 
him to think, for a moment, that she will never come to 
life? Yet the truth, as woman knows it, must be told: 
A woman who comes out of the head of a man rarely 
isa woman! He either highly fictionizes her, or endows 
her with all the romantic qualifications that he believes a 
woman ought to have. His ‘‘average woman”’ is likely 
to be a sort of cross between Pola Negri and his stenog- 
rapher. Of course, he tries to endow her with some 
home-like, old-fashioned characteristics to make the pic- 
ture balance a bit,—-with the result that he drags his poor 
old mother in somewhere, and the picture, finally, re- 
sembles, in its incongruity, something of a beautiful, but 
highly wicked Parisienne knitting socks for father! How 
else can you account for pictures of women running wash- 
ing machines while attired in ball-gowns, or women mak- 
ing preserves in the kitchen, attired in flimsy boudoir 
laces? 

The cardinal principle by which to explain womankind 
is paradox. Women want desperately to be different; 
but at the same time they want to be alike, as the fashion 
czars know. How can mere man understand paradox? 
A woman lives it and loves it. Her “‘yesses” are “‘noes,”’ 
her retreats are advances, and she ts both kind and cruel, 
highly practical and other-worldly. 


Mrs. Christine Frederick 229 


But this is metaphysics—we must keep clear of the 
sheer mystery of woman and stay by the knowable. Pro- 
fessor Hollingsworth has said that there are greater dif- 
ferences between women than between men. Ten women 
will be a great deal more varied than any ten men. Have 
you ever seen ten women together who looked alike? 
Or twenty—or a hundred, if you like? Still, in one or 
two particular characteristics women may be bunched to- 
gether like so much asparagus. 

Technically speaking, there cannot be any such person 
as the “average woman.” It is statistically accurate to 
say that an ‘‘average woman” would be an abnormal 
woman! You can’t ‘average’ human beings because you 
can’t reconcile their differences with the use of averages. 
Things that are different cannot be compared. Long, 
long ago a cloistered old book-worm, Quetelet, tried to 
find what was an average man—‘‘a man who would be to 
society what the center of gravity is to bodies.” But he 
couldn’t put life into such a conception. 

You will see how this is if you study women from the 
favorite male method of classification—the color of her 
hair. You can’t say the typical woman is dark-brown in 
color of her hair, even though there are considerably 
more women with dark-brown hair than of any other hue. 
Here are the official figures: dark-brown, 40%; light- 
brown, 25%; black, 20%; “blonde,” 10%; red, 5%. 

This may be a revelation to men; you can see that the 
brunettes number 85%. ‘The blondes, who have hogged 
most of the vampirish reputation, are only 10% in 
number. 

Descending from head to foot, the prevalent size for 
women’s shoes used to be, some years ago, about 4 or 
44, and every woman squeezed and suffered the tortures 
of the damned rather than admit she had a foot any big- 
ger than a 3. Shoe manufacturers actually falsified 


230 Masters of Advertising Copy 


sizes. Nowadays that idea is passé, and the measure of 
woman and her ankles and feet is no longer an indication 
to her character, charm or beauty. The average size 
of women’s feet these days is 514 or 6—and no disgrace 
attached to it, either! Clementina’s No. 9’s do not dis- 
qualify her. You have heard the story of the shoe clerk 
who lost a customer by saying: ‘‘Madam, your left foot 
is Jarger than the other’’; and the shoe clerk across the 
street who gained that same customer by saying, instead, 
‘‘Madam, your right foot is smaller than the other.” 

How about Milady’s Average’s bust size? America 
can hold up her head proudly, for there are actually more 
“perfect 36’s” than any other size. Here is the “inside 
dope”: Size 34, 20%; 36, 30%; 38, 20%; 40, 15%; 
42, 10%; 44 to 48, 5%. 

There is, of course, much truth in the fact that “‘the 
Colonel’s Lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under their 
skins,’’ and on this theory a good many products, par- 
ticularly those appealing very strictly to the truly feminine 
tastes of women, have stood a good chance of striking 
a high average of return. But women are becoming 
more and more highly individualized, and with this 
greater individuality, must, necessarily, come a keener 
study of women as targets for advertising or for the out- 
put of special trade-marks or brands; a study to classify 
and group them and thus hit the target of mass appeal 
more often. Right classification is the answer, not lump 
“averages.” 

The real way to find out about the typical woman for 
your own particular advertising proposition, is to make a 
questionnaire survey. [hat is the true way to determine 
a “mode.” You select the women who are of the kind 
you deal or hope to deal with, and then you have a statis- 
tically sound basis on which to construct your picture of 
the typical woman for your purposes. By carefully seeing 


Mrs. Christine Frederick 231 


to it that you select a proper proportion of all kinds of 
women who are included in your typical customer list, you 
avoid a defective picture. The women should be selected 
from all the levels of wealth you expect to appeal to; 
from all geographical points you expect to reach; from 
all sizes of towns and types of living conditions you cater 
to. They must, in other words, be good ‘‘samples.”’ 

But even such data must be revised often these days. 
In the past few years radical changes in wealth and social 
status, which always affect women more decidedly than 
men, have occurred and must continue to occur. The 
changes are taking place so rapidly, that even to-morrow 
may be different from to-day. Localities are different; 
women of various age-levels react differently. You can 
advertise to fifteen-year-old flappers to-day, whereas ten 
or twenty years ago, fifteen-year-olds were still in the 
nursery, more or less! Now they lipstick, etc..—with the 
emphasis on the e¢ cetera! 

Home conditions are also dificult for some people to 
visualize. Some copy writers talk and think as if all 
women have servants. ‘They should visit Sauk Center, 
Minn., where Sinclair Lewis lives! ‘They should respect 
facts a little more. Ninety-nine per cent of housewives 
have no servants—a figure which astounds the ill-in- 
formed who never move out of their own circle. Yet the 
immense vogue of vacuum cleaners, washing machines 
and electrical devices are based on the vast numbers of 
women who do their own housework. Even wealthy 
women have moved into smaller houses and have fewer 
servants. 

There are only 2,184,214 women in domestic service. 
Let us say roundly two million families have servants, 
because we must allow for families with more than one 
servant. This was in the 1920 census; our population has 


232 Masters of Advertising Copy 


increased considerably since then, but not, alas, our 
servants. 

Now let us look at business women, of whom we hear 
a great deal. The 1920 census showed 8,549,399 women 
“in gainful occupations,” which represents 21.1% of all 
women over I0 years of age; 2,439,965 of these were 
in ‘‘clerical and professional work,” including the 1,423,- 
658 stenographers and office girls. As I figure it, there 
are only 1,016,307 women who are above the stenog- 
rapher or manual labor class in industry—only 11.9% 
of all women who work—less than 1% of our population, 
or 3.6%, of women over 21 years of age. ‘The other 
women are working on farms (1,084,074), or in facto- 
ries (1,931,064). Tome it would seem that only about 
a million women in the United States are ‘business 
women” in the real sense of the word; women taking 
business at all seriously. Everybody knows that the 
great bulk of women in factory and office are there to 
add to their dress allowance, get away a little from home 
discipline, and have more opportunity to meet beaux! 

But do not get the idea that I am belittling women’s 
importance in economic things. Oh, no! Women buy 
71% of the family merchandise; 48.4% of it they per- 
sonally select without advice, and in the selection of 23% 
more they have an important voice. Fifty per cent of 
automobiles are bought with women’s eyes on the goods 
before signing up. Naturally, women buy 90% dry 
goods—but what about the 11% of men’s clothing, 
which the research shows they also buy, to say nothing 
of 22% more of it that they buy in collaboration with 
men. Thirty-four per cent of what you wear, if you are 
a man, is bought for you by your womankind—if you are 
a typical man. She spends most of the approximately 
thirty-five billion dollars expended in retail stores every 


Mrs. Christine Frederick 233 


year—about one hundred million dollars a day, or about 
twelve million dollars every hour of business! 

Your typical woman, then, is a difficult problem to 
visualize all in one romantic frame. She must be viewed 
rather from various angles of aproach. You have some 
of the physical facts about her—color of hair and size 
of feet; you have something about her occupation- 
ally, and you know what her spending power is. Her 
psychology—the ‘‘emotionality” Professor Thorndyke 
attributes to her—is vastly more subtle. 

Every woman has about the same reactions when she 
is in love, when she has a child, and when her feet hurt. 
Also, she is “‘average”’ in her tight economy for all things 
useful and her lavishness on things decorative of herself. 
She is a born bargainer; she will not be fooled by inferior 
goods, no matter how successfully trade-marked or 
camouflaged. She likes to feel she is different than other 
women; yet she likes to be doing and wearing what is 
‘the mode.” She likes to imitate the ‘“‘best people’; she 
accepts authority readily. 

She is sensitive, esthetic, likes cleanliness inordinately ; 
likes delicacy, refinement and tenderness. She is senti- 
mental and fearsome; she is highly practical and personal 
in her outlook. She is not interested in mechanics or 
abstract ideas. 


Women as Bait in Advertising Copy 


If I were to take my ideas of women from many adver- 
tisements directed to women, I would most certainly have 
strange conceptions of what Dr. Johnson called “the 
sex.’ I positively assert that women are still used too 
much pictorially in advertisements as advertising bait. 

I shall try to show firstly, that the P.G.* as bait in 


*P. G. refers to “Pretty Girl.” 


on 


234 Masters of Advertising Copy 


advertising copy is declining and rightly so; secondly, 
that it is men, and not women, who are appealed to by the 
lurid use of the P.G.; thirdly, that a great mistake is 
made in substituting the chorus type of beauty in place 
of that type of woman who is really more powerfully 
appealing—the woman who is natural, sweet, intelligent 
and “homey” but not homely; and lastly, that even when 
the P.G. is legitimately used in advertising copy, she is 
often erroneously and misfittingly displayed, creating 
what I choose to call an “‘advertising anachronism.”’ 

Now what is the idea that is supposed to be behind 
the P.G.? Is it that all of us universally never see enough 
pictures of feminine charm? Is it because men chiefly 
prepare and draw our advertising copy? Could it be 
because of the poverty of ideas on the part of the adver- 
tiser, who, because he can’t think of anything else or 
build up a convincing argument, slaps on a P.G.? Or is 
it only a half-conscious condition which is slowly dying 
out because it is unsound and incorrect? 

I think it is a composite of a number of these reasons. 
I think that the development of the ‘reason why’”’ 
appeal in advertising has just naturally pushed the P.G. 
off the stage, and that it, coupled with the rising of gen- 
eral intelligence on the part of the woman consumer, will 
soon cause readers to see her no more. 

Of course we women have helped along the tradition 
that we are the most beautiful sex; but in spite of this 
fact, and that we may have encouraged men to use beauty 
as bait in their advertisement copy in the past, I shall 
prove that the use of the P.G. in advertising copy is 
decreasing as we become more sensible. Ten or twelve 
years ago practically the only way to advertise tire ads., 
toothpowder, razors, cigarettes, as well as most articles 
of personal, feminine, and household use, was to catch the 
attention by slapping a P.G. on to the picture. The P.G. 


Mrs. Christine Frederick 235 


either sat in the tire, or smoked the cigarette, or hugged 
the article close to her not over-obviously clothed person. 
“Ask Dad, he knows’”—if he will tell—of those days 
when the chief reason for buying cigarettes was to get a 
small photo of Lillian Russell or Cissy Loftus, or a bowery 
burlesque Queen to stick around his mirror, and when all 
tobacco advertising vied with its rivals solely on the basis 
of the vaudeville artists they included in each package. 
But compare a striking tobacco advertisement of to-day 
—“Your nose knows,” or “‘Watch them register—they 
satisfy’’—which leaves the P.G. in mentionless oblivion. 

There is a marked lessening of the use of the P.G. not 
only in the smoking, suspender, and allied men’s fields, 
but in all lines of products either of distinctly women’s 
or for household use. I might perhaps venture to suggest 
that all women to-day are so universally beautiful that 
men do not need to put a headless lady into a shaving 
brush or buy a package of cigarettes to gaze on extraor- 
dinary feminine charms! 

There must be some reason why the P.G. has disap- 
peared so markedly. “To-day competition is most keen, 
and the best business brains are devoting themselves to 
advertising, so that we are seeing the sense and power of 
“reason why,’—of arguments based on the scientific, 
fact, utility, economy, convenience, comfort, style and 
educational ‘‘appeal” in the advertising of countless 
products. 

And now for my secondly—I believe it is men, and not 
women who are appealed to by the P.G. as she is ex- 
ploited in our current advertisements. Do pretty women 
appeal to women? | admit that women are admirers of 
female beauty, but the point men never see is, that we 
are far sharper-eyed critics of our sex than men, and 
know real beauty when we see it, and when it is not beauty 
at all. ‘There is no antagonism so pronounced as the 


236 Masters of Advertising Copy 


antagonism of the average common-sense type of woman 
for the artificial doll type, for whom man, in his crass 
ignorance and uncritical susceptibility, so commonly 
‘“falls!’? Do women admire the “‘chicken type’’ in adver- 
tising?—-No! But this does not in the slightest degree 
restrain a woman from admiring the really fine and 
appropriate type of woman, the beauty of Julia Mar- 
lower, Elsie Ferguson, or Maxine Elliott, when adapted 
to its setting. All we ask is that our sensibilities be not 
offended by daubing an advertisement with female 
pulchritude. 

If women were so inordinately fond of gazing at 
female beauty as the advertising artist would have us 
believe, you would find that every American housekeeper 
would subscribe to the Police Gazette along with her 
copy of the Ladies’ Home Journal or the Designer. 

As for men, I do not believe they, either, are so titil- 
lated at the sight of a pretty girl as is popularly supposed. 
I think that the tremendous output of the printing presses 
and the development of the moving picture has made 
P.G. faces so commonplace and cheap in every crevice of 
the modern world that the thing has lost its novelty. I 
admit that in a far-off mining camp or on board a 
freighter bound for Borneo, men may still ponder deli- 
ciously over an advertisement or almanac baited with 
eyes and hair and cheeks and lips, but men do not need 
to do it in modern civilized centers where there are 
millions more women than men. 

Most men and women coming out of a movie theater, 
are so satiated with goo-goos and tar-dipped eye-lashes 
of the closeup showing the obviously displayed beauty of 
the movie star in violent action, that when their gaze 
falls on a billboard or on a newspaper showing an adver- 
tising “‘still’” of a P.G. eating Simkins self-winding spag- 
hetti, it leaves them cold and unmoved. 


Mrs. Christine Frederick DSi 


And now for my thirdly—that it is a mistake to sub- 
stitute the chorus type of beauty for the woman who is 
really more powerfully appealing and of a higher, finer 
kind of natural charm. 

Judging from the creations which he turns out, I infer 
that the average advertising artist’s habitat is bounded 
on the North by Midnight Follies, on the South by 
Greenwich Village, on the West by the Russian Ballet and 
blockaded on the East by the late Mr. Comstock’s society 
for the Suppression of Vice. No advertising artist seems 
to have a wife who does her own housework, he never 
had a mother, and a grandmother of course he never saw 
or heard of. New York has a copyright on its women. 
The type of ‘“‘chicken” which he knows and portrays so 
glibly, the eye-brow-shaved, massaged, short-skirted doll 
of anemic New York life is a parasite and oddity to the 
total population of these American States. He would 
not find this type in Clyde Ohio, Goshen Indiana, Rock 
Hill South Carolina, Paris Kentucky, or all points west, 
and yet it is the consumers in these towns that buy the 
advertised washing machines, soaps, breakfast foods. 

And now for lastly. We know that both actors and 
producers of plays take the greatest pains to have their 
characters true to period, to setting, to costuming. Im- 
agine Hamlet wearing a business suit and riding a bicycle, 
or Marguerite wearing a middy blouse and running a 
sewing machine! Yet, this is exactly what our advertis- 
ing artists do—they are so crazed, so obsessed, so held 
by a “complex” of a pretty girl that they blindly draw a 
pretty girl as they imagine her and as they see her clothed 
in city fashion, no matter if she graces an advertisement 
for poultry food to be used on the farms of Oshkosh. As 
long as she is pretty she will do! 

Recently I noticed a pretty girl in a washing machine 
ad wearing a ruffed apron, a bewitching ruff on her hair; 


238 Masters of Advertising Copy 


she was attaching a well-known and most excellent wash- 
ing machine to the lamp socket. Is she the lady herself 
who is going to do the washing? Well, not all home- 
makers wear black uniforms and these accessories pre- 
paratory to work. Is she the laundress? Not all laun- 
dresses, either, wear a ruff on their hair and a frilly ruffle 
as a fig leaf. Ah, I have guessed it! ‘This is the parlor 
maid, the one who takes your card and ostensibly removes 
the dust with a derelict rooster. Yes, our artist has 
drawn a perfect, scrupulously exact and charming parlor 
maid. But—and here is my point—do parlor maids 
operate washing machines? No, never—well, hardly 
ever, except in the dreams of the advertising artist. 

The American woman has no more use for overdoses 
of female beauty in advertising than she has for old 
chromos, or the antimacassars of the Victorian era. 

And she definitely resents the mere idea of so promiscu- 
ously using woman as bait. She sees the all too obvious 
machinery of the advertising puppet show behind the 
flaunting of woman in advertising and grasps your desire 
to steal into her good graces by means of the pass word 
of the pretty girl. 


Broadening the Consumption for Family Goods Through 
Educative Copy 


One of the practical results of some careful analysis 
prior to preparing advertising to housewives is that 
family and consumer conditions are often uncovered 
which can result in important new merchandising slants. 

When an advertiser of household goods desires to 
increase the volume of his sales he has two paths toward 
growth: (1) increasing the number of families using his 
goods, (2) increasing the amount of goods used per 
family. How can he know which offers the easiest road 


Mrs. Christine Frederick 239 


unless he studies the mind, habits and economies of the 
housewife, on different levels? 

I am constantly noticing that advertisers are ignoring 
the second broad path to greater volume. For instance, 
some few years ago I brought to the attention of a famous 
maker of canned soups the fact that his growth had been 
confined to increasing the number of people buying canned 
soup, while ignoring a particularly rich opportunity to 
educate those women who already bought the soups, par- 
ticularly tomato, to use them as sauces in cooking and 
serving. I pointed out that ten cans of soup could be 
used in a family for this purpose to one for soup purposes 
alone. The result was that I prepared a booklet giving 
recipes for such new uses of canned soup, and a resultful 
advertising campaign was begun, with a new and educa- 
tive copy slant. Great numbers of women now buy canned 
soups for these new purposes. 

Many other articles of household use are susceptible 
to this consumption broadening process, to a degree 
which can mean doubling and trebling of sales. Fleisch- 
man’s yeast is a famous example, but the soup instance 
mentioned above is more generally illustrative. 

Two famous breakfast food advertisers have been 
making history for themselves along this line—Postum, 
and Shredded Wheat. A big prize contest conducted by 
Postum to develop different ways of utilizing Grape- 
Nuts, and the new copy slants developed from it, have 
resulted in a wider public realization of the use of Grape 
Nuts as a general food article as well as a breakfast dish. 
Shredded Wheat has done the same thing with equally 
striking results. Over 50,000 women entered the contest, 
suggesting Shredded Wheat for puddings, salads, cook- 
ies, custards, and in combination with meats, cheese, 
eggs, fruits, etc. 

What is needed is a creative outlook on the household 


240 Masters of Advertising Copy 


market; a more inquiring, open attitude of mind to study 
the possibilities of a given field. ‘The enterprising adver- 
tising writer is usually the one who does such delving, 
and usually makes use of expert home economies, experi- 
ment and advice. I am convinced that there are not 
enough practically and theoretically trained women 
brought into consultation to dig out such broadening-out 
posibilities. Men are too likely to look exclusively upon 
the merchandising side of their business and fail to 
relate closely their article and particularly their adver- 
tising to the typical family conditions and possibilities. 

If you are selling a food article, especially a semi- 
staple, the chances are that modern dietetics and up-to- 
date family practice have opened doors for your article 
which you may be ignoring—or made others passé. The 
increased per-family income has made unnecessary the 
rigidly narrow standards of older days. It has im- 
mensely widened the range of purchase and of diet. It 
permits the use of more expensive soaps and more kinds 
of soap products, for instance. It permits the making 
of more kinds of pastry and breads, the enjoyment of 
more manufactured articles, the equiping of kitchens with 
more devices. 

Lines of goods which are being crowded off their perch 
by the modern higher standards are in real need of such 
revitalized advertising copy. Codfish, mackeral and salt 
pork, for instance, belong to an older and more economi- 
cal era; and to-day they are being dropped for foods 
more alluring. ‘The sellers of such articles have need for 
both vertical and horizontal growth. Other articles 
have a fairly satisfactory growth along horizontal lines, 
either through natural increase in population or by dint 
of sales effort. ‘The one lack is to increase the uses of 
the product, increase the average consumer’s knowledge 
of the wider applications of the article. There is always 


Mrs. Christine Frederick 241 


a certain especially intelligent, alert group of consumers 
who are using your product in a wide range of ways, far 
above the average; and the important thing is to lift a 
greater percentage of your average users up to the con- 
sumption level of your small minority. More than that 
—you may lift even your intelligent minority’s level of 
consumption to still higher points by securing technical 
home economics counsel to develop new suggestions for 
a greater variety of applications of use. ‘There is an 
ever-growing body of women who are alert to new ideas, 
and whom you have only to convince of a bright idea to 
get them to adopt it forthwith. This is not true, of 
course, of the great mass, who can be educated only 
slowly; but the educated minority is worth a great deal 
of special attention; giving them a copy treatment en- 
tirely different from the dull level of women. 

‘“Three-in-one Oil” is an example of a household 
product which has been exceedingly keen for vertical 
growth; offering prizes for new ideas for uses and con- 
stantly educating the public through advertising as to the 
multi-various uses of its product. 

But more particularly I refer to articles which are 
more or less fixed in the minds of people as good for only 
one or two uses, whereas there are in reality one, two 
or three other uses. I do not think it of great importance 
to discover a few more uses for Three-in-one Oil, to add 
to its already long list; but I do think it a big idea to 
educate women to use a disinfectant, let us say, for the 
ice box, the sick room, scrubbing pail, the bath tub, 
instead of merely for the toilet or the garbage pail. 
There is far too little per capita sale of disinfectant 
because of its narrow use. The same is true of antisep- 
tics, of polishes, of paper towels, of linoleum and a score 
of other housefurnishing articles. 

In the food field there are a great many more exam- 


242 Masters of Advertising Copy 


ples, of course. Rice is not given its full possible variety 
on the menu, nor bread, nor crackers, no cheese, nor 
flavoring extracts, spices, cocoa, gelatine, cocoanut, salad 
oil, spaghetti, and a long list of other foods. People get 
in a rut in the use of an article. ‘They use it for one pur- 
pose and never for anything else, because it does not 
occur to them. Cranberries were once reserved only for 
two days of the year, for some purely habit reason, until 
a use-broadening campaign was begun. 

The American woman is red-ripe for education along 
use-broadening lines, because huge numbers of women 
have a longer family purse to-day than before the war. 
They can do more things, buy more things, and they are 
still fascinated with the novelty of experiment. An 
advertising writer to women should get the sense and 
the spirit of this. 

Advertisers are not all aware, also, that cooking knowl- 
edge and general household science has advanced in the 
last dozen years, and that it is distinctly behind the times 
to neglect the increased knowledge of the day. Competi- 
tors will surely break the new ground first if it is not 
looked after. 

Certain types and kinds of cookery are also neglected 
because there is no educational advertising in operation. 
Deep-fat frying, for instance, or casserole cookery, or 
home candy making—to mention a few at random. Pie- 
making is becoming a factory and restaurant proposi- 
tion; whereas pie is the American man’s first love. Few 
advertisers are stressing home-made pie. Not long ago, 
for a great California fruit-growing association, I devel- 
oped some new pie recipes which are to be featured in 
advertising; but this is but one kind of pie. Nobody else 
is at work boosting home-made pies. There ought to be 
a pie cook book, for every woman ought to learn this 
broad path to a man’s heart! 


Mrs. Christine Frederick 243 


Every concern selling family food ought to be aware 
that it is dealing with an art and science, flexible and 
full of possibilities, and it should also realize that the 
domain of the kitchen is rather an alien land to men. 
Only women can fully grasp what women’s needs and 
opportunities are. I find in very many instances that the 
typical man’s point of view prevails; the ‘“‘goods”’ is 
regarded as so much mere merchandise to be moved and 
distributed, without a real understanding of the situation 
in the kitchen. One reason why ‘‘Crisco”’ has been so 
splendid a success is because two years of experiment 
were made, even in the kitchen conditions of ignorant 
southern negro women, to make sure both that the article 
was adopted to women’s needs, and that the literature 
and advertising about it were close to the average 
woman’s understanding and need. 

We thus see at work the social changes due to new 
types of merchandise, new wealth. The farm woman 
once wore little else but gingham and black alpaca. She 
buys copies of Fifth Avenue models to-day, and her 
daughter, whose face was innocent of aught but freckles, 
now owns the standard female laboratory of toilet 
articles. 

Food is perhaps the most striking item among the new 
consumption standards. We spend for meat about seven 
times as much as we spend for bread; about five times as 
much as we spend for our public schools; and even ten 
times as much as we spend for our churches. A rear- 
rangement of our family budget in the direction of more 
vegetables and fruit and other forms of food is inevitable 
and is, in fact, taking place. War-time discipline has led 
to the discovery of new foods, with much resulting benefit. 

The family menu will continue to show many changes 
in consumption habits. Many splendid foods which have 
never had a good chance are now more widely appreci- 


2A 5 Masters of Advertising Copy 


ated. ‘This has notably happened to macaroni and spag- 
hetti, of which there is now a very greatly increased con- 
sumption. Such articles of food as the lentil, and the 
entire pea and bean family, which serve as meat substi- 
tutes, are enjoying greatly increased patronage. We are 
rapidly developing into a fruit- and vegetable-eating 
nation. New fruits and new vegetables are constantly 
making new friends, as a result of modern educational 
advertising, based on close study of home and family 
conditions. 

The American woman’s standards of purchase are also 
higher. She is more desirous of really good quality than 
ever before. It has often been said slightingly of this 
country that we bought a greater amount of worthless 
merchandise of poor lasting qualities and of no esthetic 
beauty than almost any other civilized country. The 
war’s experience in commodity purchases has taught us 
that quality pays because it lasts longer and has greater 
beauty and fitness. ‘There will be fewer houses filled with 
cheap imitations of period furniture and other miscella- 
neous ‘‘grimcracks.’’ Even our wall papers will be less 
ambitious, ornate and oppressive. 

The advertiser of family goods who aims to under- 
stand the modern woman and her home problems will 
have to do a great deal more digging than talking to his 
wife and stenographer before he writes copy! Home 
economics in relation to merchandising and advertising 
copy is to-day a well developed science which cannot be 
ignored. 


XV 


Behevable Advertising 


A. O. Owen. Well-known sales promotional copy writer 
and copy chief with large publishing houses; has lectured on 
copy writing and written many ads of all types. 


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XV 
Believable Advertising 
By O. A. Owen 


“4 NO tell the truth in such a way that people recognize 
it as truth is one of the hardest things men set 
themselves to do. From the time when, as children 

accused of some other kid’s misdeeds, we wept and 
pleaded to have our innocence believed by incredulous 
parents and teachers, up to the era when we go into print 
and tell the public what we know about our canned goods, 
fireless cooker or shovels, we are constantly aware that 
all the lies ever told by others have armored average 
human minds against us. We find, too, that though sin- 
cerity has an accent of its own that is popularly sup- 
posed inimitable, insincerity can counterfeit that accent 
with wonderful accuracy. 

In writing advertising copy, it is not enough to know 
that one is telling the truth. That alone will not neces- 
sarily make the public give credence. Our knowledge of 
the product, our enthusiasm and our sincerity will not 
automatically produce conviction. To rely wholly on 
them is to make the mistake of the actor who, disdain- 
ing all tradition and technique, thought if he believed 
himself to be Richelieu while on the stage he would act 
the part to perfection. 

There is a technique of believability in advertising. 

There are definite things to do with ‘“‘copy” to make 
it transfer to other minds the solid grounds for approval 

247 


248 Masters of Advertising Copy 


of a product which any copy-writer worth his salt regards 
as a prerequisite to good work. 

There is an art of making oneself believed in print, 
and sincerity alone is no more a substitute for it than 
anger is a substitute for knowing how to box when a man 
has to fight. 

I propose to tell such few of the elements of the sci- 
ence of being believed as I have noted in advertising. 
There are many more such elements than are here set 
down, and it is quite possible that I shall leave out im- 
portant ones. ‘The topic has not had as much separate 
attention given it by writers on advertising as it deserves. 


Figures 


The front cover of System, the magazine of business, 
carries the titles of two or three of the main articles 
within, and in addition some such statement as this: 
‘Also 327 suggestions by 143 writers on how to make 
sales and reduce costs.’ ‘The advertisements of auto- 
mobile tires frequently give results of mileage tests, ex- 
pressed with what seems to be needless accuracy, as 
17,967.32 miles. Ivory soap, as we all now know, is 
99 44/100 per cent pure. (I wonder how many million 
dollars were spent to engrave that figure—and Heinz’s 
‘“e7”_on the American brain?) A certain financier, fa- 
mous in his time as Bet-you-a-million Gates, made it a 
principle in the promoting which netted him a hundred 
million dollars, always to state exact figures in his argu- 
ments. If the purchase of a mill was $453,667.12, he 
would even in his most hurried talk repeat the sum 
in full. 

If System should say on its cover, “A wealth of sug- 
gestions by a battalion of writers,” would it be as con- 
vincing as ‘“327 suggestions by 143 writers’? 


O. A. Owen 249 


If the mileage test was described as “exceeding 17,000 
miles” would that be as truth-like as 17,967.32? Would 
‘almost absolutely pure’ do as well as 99 44/100%? 
If the promoter had used the round sums that inferior 
promoters delight in and had said ‘about half a million 
dollars’”—would he have amassed a nine-figure fortune 
by his flotations? 

It may be set down as a copy axiom always to use 
figures, when possible, instead of words, and always to 
use exact figures instead of round sums. This may often 
make awkward copy, but it is a characteristic of facts 
that they interfere with smoothness. Reality has a 
rhythm of its own. Any story of real life, romantic 
though it may be in places, is likely to possess anticlimax 
and ugly irrelevance precisely when fiction would not. 
Perhaps it is because of this that exact figures have a 
natural believability. Just why one way of telling truth 
is accepted by the public and another way is not consti- 
tutes in many cases a mystery. It is not always possible 
to understand the why’s of faith, nor its occasional in- 
consistencies. 

When a quotation is made from a book, report or 
other document, not one reader in a hundred thousand 
will verify it, yet it is eminently worth while to cite the 
exact volume, chapter and page when quoting. Ad- 
dresses and even telephone numbers can be given in some 
cases, where annoyance will not result to an individual 
mentioned in an advertisement, and will add materially 
to the credibility of what is said. Figures are the acme 
of exactness, and exact statement is characteristic of 
truth telling. 

It is an American trait—increasing as life becomes 
more hurried and complex—to act on surface indica- 
tions without tedious investigation. If anything “looks 
good” to the typical twentieth century American he will 


250 Masters of Advertising Copy 


“take a chance.” Advertising, after all, is a series of 
affirmations by a stranger. It is not physical demonstra- 
tion nor sworn evidence. No consumer is going to insti- 
tute an investigation before buying a 50-cent bottle of 
dentifrice. Believability above a certain point makes 
sales; below that point it does not. Advertising must 
make out what lawyers call “‘a prima facie case’’—that is, 
a case that warrants a trial in court. Only, the court in 
such instances is the consumer and the trial is buying and 
using the goods. Therefore, advertising, with nothing 
but printed affirmations as its unsworn witnesses, must 
learn the peculiarities of human belief, the science or 
art of creating tentative faith. 


Proper Nouns 


To say ‘“‘a great Western city,” instead of ‘“‘Denver,”’ is 
to create some suspicion. It is, in form if not intention, a 
species of evasion. ‘A celebrated judge” is a phrase 
carrying nothing, while mention of Charles Evans Hughes 
commands attention. Mr. Rockefeller is conceded by all 
of us to be the richest American, but if so described, and 
not named, readers unconsciously score one point against 
the credibility of the copy. Even further, John D. 
Rockefeller is better copy than Mr. Rockefeller. Proper 
nouns are almost as valuable as figures in advertising. 

It is often, of course, forbidden or impracticable to use 
a man’s name in an advertisement, but in such cases the 
familiar “name on request” helps a great deal. 

It is more believable to say “‘styles now reigning from 
Rue de la Paix, Paris, to Fifth Avenue, New York” than 
‘styles now reigning from the fashion centers of Europe 
to those of America.” 


O. A. Owen Pho | 


Reiteration 


Years ago in a small weekly I read an advertisement 
which was headed “A Suit of Clothes Free!’’—an in- 
credible statement. Over and over again it was stated 
that a suit of clothing could be procured without cost. 
I think the assertion was made fully a dozen times. One 
did not believe the headline, nor the first or second re- 
iteration, but it is an instinct based on life’s experiences 
to be impressed by repeated and emphatic repetitions of 
any statement, however extraordinary. So people speak 
who protest against the unbelief of their hearers. The 
arrested man who says once, sullenly, “I am innocent!’ 
then stops, is probably guilty, but he who repeats the 
phrase unceasingly and earnestly shakes the strongest 
conviction to the contrary. 

I was forced, in spite of myself, to answer the adver- 
tisement. It contained no clue as to the method which 
would produce a free suit, but its reiterations bred some 
belief. The reply disclosed that any one who would sell 
five suits for the advertiser would receive a sixth for 
himself as compensation. ‘The advertiser got what he 
wanted when he received an inquiry, for thereafter he 
released a follow-up which was, as I remember it, a mas- 
terpiece of repetition. 

The point is that an advertisement worked up belief 
in a preposterous claim by merely making the claim a 
number of times, without adducing any further evidence 
or explanation. 

Modern advertisers understand that repetition, in the 
sense of keeping on advertising month in and month out, 
pays, but I doubt whether they sufficiently practise the 
other kind of repetition, namely, that within the adver- 
tisement itself. 


252 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Local Connection 


If I lived in Scranton I don’t know why I would sooner 
buy oil stocks from an ofhce around the corner than I 
would from one in Boston or New York, but I would. 
There are doubtless rogues in Scranton as in a metropolis. 
Stellite knives are made in Kokomo and sold from a 
New York branch also. I am going to order one by 
mail, and I shall order from the New York branch, buy- 
ing ‘‘sight unseen’? quite as much as though I sent to 
the Indiana headquarters. 

We inherit a deep-seated trait from our tribal ances- 
tors. Strangers and far-off people are still presumed 
to be crafty and hostile by the savage who sleeps in our 
race soul. New Yorkers are my people; Kokomites are 
outlanders. 

Consequently a touch of localism in an advertisement 
makes it believable. I know a seller of garages whose 
plant is in Michigan and who for some years has shipped 
his excellent automobile shelters to every part of the 
Atlantic coast. Now he is going to campaign in a big 
way, concentrating his men around towns where his 
garages were installed. In nineteen cases out of twenty 
the “prospect” will never go to see the local structures, 
but the mere fact that one of his own tribe and totem 
owns one inclines him to believe the salesman’s other 
statements. That trait in human nature is the founda- 
tion of this wise garage maker’s big selling effort. 

If I, from Philadelphia, were advertising a new wall 
board in Texas, I would refer to a Houston merchant 
who carried it as my “agent,” and I would try very hard 
to have a bit of the wall board in the Governor’s man- 
sion at Austin, and tell of it. That bit would do more 
for me than acres of wall board in Albany, Hartford, 
Boston and Harrisburg, for are not these the capitals 


O. A. Owen 253 


of the far-off Northmen who eat oysters and wear nar- 
row-brimmed hats? 


Testimonials 


Some of the earliest things done in advertising have 
never been improved on. Among them are testimonials, 
the mainstay of the old and wonderfully effective patent 
medicine advertising. These are best when the full 
name and address are given, but even when disguised in 
initials they have strength. Everything, it seems, can be 
made the subject of a testimonial, and a well-worded one 
from an obscure person is sometimes almost as good as 
one signed by a movie queen. The less they are edited 
the better. Bad grammar and anything else casting ridi- 
cule upon their writers must come out, of course, but if 
there be, as so often happens, a natural and quaint turn, 
an artless confession, a colloquialism, an idiom that be- 
trays the layman and unprofessional hand that wrote it, 
these should be conserved as precious. ‘They are fine 
gold. ‘They are believable, for the phraseology is in- 
ternal evidence of genuineness. 


Education and Its Lack 


There is a manner of thinking and writing innate with 
highly educated people. I do not mean by this literary 
excellence, because such people may and often do write 
dully and at times obscurely. Roosevelt and Grant had 
different styles, neither being at all equal in literary 
merit to, let us say, such lesser lights as the critic Hey- 
wood Broun, or whoever the current literary god may be. 
But a thoroughly educated man of the type I mean 
somehow puts his own picture in whatever he writes. He 
will not consider what he speaks of as unique in a sin- 


254 Masters of Advertising Copy 


gularly unoriginal world, for he knows many things like 
it. His emphasis stops short of over-emphasis. His 
vocabulary will, as a rule, be rather large. There will be 
a bookish touch in what he says and more than a few 
allusions that would not occur to all. ‘The best illustra- 
tion of the kind of believability that inheres in every- 
thing such people say that I can think of was when Sena- 
tor Proctor of Vermont came back from Cuba and told 
this country what he had seen there. It was just before 
our war with Spain—yjust before, for the simple reason 
that his sober account resolved America to fight Spain. 
Proctor was temperamentally the most unsensational man 
imaginable, a very grave and reverend senior. There 
were no “winged words” in his story, no epigrams, noth- 
ing quotable, but the ring of perfect truth was in every 
word. 

The many reserves and hesitations in his telling would, 
I suppose, be anathema to a professional writer of ad- 
vertisements. I don’t say reserve and hesitation are good 
copy qualities; but I do say that if any copy writer had 
Proctor’s intellect, education and character, his copy 
would have reserve and hesitation at the right places and 
no. other. 

The point I am arriving at is that, first, a high degree 
of education will quite unerringly make believable even 
amateurish advertising. Second, that a quite low de- 
gree will frequently do the very same thing. ‘That is 
one of the inconsistencies of faith. Occasionally there 
strays into print the advertising of some man who 
chooses to write his own copy but who has had scant 
schooling. His very ignorance, oftener than not, makes 
his advertising amazingly profitable. One case was an 
Italian restaurateur who sent out a circular of his own 
composition, in ludicrous English, that drew customers 
by scores to his shabby place in a side street. Another 


O. A. Owen 255 


was the apparently “corking”’ copy put out by a laundry- 
man who employed a high-priced copy expert. He lost 
trade until he wrote his own ingenuous appeal that 
brought housewives flocking to his place. 

Senator Proctor tells what he saw in Cuba. His edu- 
cation and intellect are high. We, the public, feel that 
they preclude misrepresentation. He is believed, and 
that speech drives Spain from our shores. An Italian 
chef tells about his little restaurant. His ignorance and 
lack of learning make us smile. But we believe him as 
we do a child. He has not mind enough to lie, we rea- 
son, and his modest fortune is made by his circular. 


“Giving Yourself Away” 


It is contrary to all advertising doctrine that adver- 
tising should admit a fault in the thing advertised. Yet 
it is among the oddities of faith that we seldom believe 
a statement which is an unqualified catalog of excellences, 
just as seldom as we really like a strong man until we 
learn his little weaknesses and failings. 

I will never forget looking at a Fox typewriting ma- 
chine in a store run by a young Irishman in the Rue Vivi- 
enne, Paris. The Fox is an English machine built ap- 
parently by a maker of battleships. Every type bar and 
part is about five times too massive for its purpose. This 
young fellow did his Irish best to sell it, but was betrayed 
into the admission, ‘Sure, it’s cloomsy (clumsy) 
but I bought it on the spot, enraptured. I knew 
it had no other faults, or he would have blurted them 
out—‘“‘sure.”’ 

In Chicago once a year there came to my office a col- 
lector for a local bureau that spotted and put out of 
business fraudulent charities. The bureau saved offices 
such as mine many a toll that would have been levied by 


256 Masters of Advertising Copy 


swindlers. I was hesitating about making my annual 
contribution of $10 when this collector burst out, quite 
in the Paris Irishman’s style, “I know we’re nothing but 
beggars.’ It was just the naive touch that reminded 
me what a really honest institution his humble bureau 
was and he got his money, and we both got a good laugh 
that was worth $10 by itself. 

There never was and never will be a perfect automo- 
bile, soap, fireless cooker, breakfast food, burglar alarm, 
novel, hotel, advertising agency or anything else. You 
have a deathless affection for a certain chop-house or a 
certain tailor, but haven’t they defects? Doesn’t the 
tailor invariably misfit the vest in front and doesn’t your 
favorite waiter lag with the second helping of butter when 
you order pancakes? Have you ever encountered per- 
fection anywhere on earth except in advertisements? 
Wouldn’t it be friendlier if they admitted an occasional 
drawback, as that the automobile was not constructed 
to climb trees or the fireless cooker to smelt ores? 

In every sincere telling there is an element of confes- 
sion. Until the fly in the ointment is disclosed the story 
is instinctively known to be too good to be true. The 
wise advertiser may safely ‘“‘give himself away” some- 
where if only to be believed in the main. 


Superlatives 


A good many publications will not allow advertisers to 
apply superlatives to their products. In the beginning 
this irked many copy writers or their employers, but I 
believe most of these have since learned that the inhibi- 
tion helped them by making their story more believable. 
For a magazine that was unusually strict in forbidding 
superlatives I once wrote as follows: 

“One of our fixed rules is not to admit advertisements 


O. A. Owen PRT | 


that apply superlatives to the product discussed. This 
rule has cost us many a dollar, for not every advertiser 
will amend his manuscript. We ask him, ‘Suppose, at 
the same time we print the statement that your machine 
is the best, some other concern, making a similar ap- 
paratus, advertises with us that theirs is the best? Where 
does that leave us for consistency—we, who guarantee 
every statement our advertisers make?’ The reply often 
is, ‘Yes, but mine is the best!’ It matters not that house- 
wives, comparing and pricing the two devices, buy the 
other as often as his—his is still the best! 

‘““We have never met a manufacturer who said that 
he made the ‘second best’ article of its kind! We never 
expect to. But if such a rare being should turn up and 
announce his article as second best, the startling, the 
revolutionary frankness of the thing would sell his 
goods—because it would establish his truthfulness on 
such a firm base that in the next breath he might make 
almost any claim and be believed! 

“Tf one advertises that an article is healing, delicious, 
economical, light, durable, nickel-plated, antiseptic or 
anything else definite, the mind can grasp the claim, 
weigh it and act on it. But what does best really mean? 
Best for whom? For what? Isn’t it about as inept as 
the ‘best best’ occasionally used by frenzied advertisers? 

‘You open a magazine at random, see the name of a 
soap more or less unknown to fame, and are told it is 
‘the best soap made.’ Of all the hundreds of soaps de- 
vised by man’s skill in centuries, you just happen to have 
learned of the supreme detergent of them all! You feel 
as Madame Curie felt when she discovered radium—or, 
if you are like most of us, you say ‘Piffle!’ and turn the 
page. 

“The genius who wrote of his soap ‘It floats’ knew the 
art of inducing belief better.”’ 


258 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Guaranteeing 


The reference to guaranteeing in the above reminds 
me of a curious phase of mass belief. In law, in trans- 
actions between trained business men, and when embod- 
ied in contract form, the guarantee of anything is the 
strongest claim or promise that can be made. It obliges 
the seller to make good financially for the shortcomings 
of what he sells. A warranty deed is a guarantee of title 
laying the seller under binding obligations. An insur- 
ance policy is a form of guarantee. 

But in advertising the stubbornest unbelief the great 
good-natured public ever shows is aroused by the word 
‘“suarantee.”’ ‘This is not an idle statement. ‘The maga- 
zine from which I have excerpted guaranteed every ad- 
vertisement between its covers unqualifiedly. I know, 
because I received the rare and few claims for reim- 
bursement sent in by readers and my orders were to send 
checks even if the claim was frivolous or unfair. We 
advertised this guarantee to readers with a persistency 
that wearied even ourselves and with every change we 
could ring upon the language of truth and sincerity. But 
all to no avail, or to little avail, for a long time. I may 
say, it took two or three years, or more, before there 
were signs that any considerable part of our public be- 
lieved us. 

There have been cases where guarantee ‘‘got across” 
more easily, as with the first introduction of Holeproof 
hosiery, but I think that was because in every case the 
dealer was asked by an intending buyer as to the sin- 
cerity of the promise and gave his personal word in sup- 
port of it, making its believability rest on other grounds 
than printed assurances. 

I think the public’s skepticism about guarantees comes 
partly from the fact that the word has been used reck- 


O. A. Owen 259 


lessly for years by all sorts of sellers who meant noth- 
ing tangible by it, and partly by the fact that the word 
itself to many people, and especially to women, means 
merely emphatic assurance and not legal obligation. 

I have seen a good many manufacturers, and some 
publishers, vastly worried when it was first proposed that 
they embody guarantee in their policies. I have seen 
them call in their lawyers to scrutinize the wording of 
the guarantee lest it involve them in unforeseen and huge 
responsibilities. They were business men and as such 
had found guarantee a dangerous thing to play with. I 
have seen the same men afterwards both astonished and 
relieved, and still later disappointed, to find out that the 
American consumer puts no faith in and pays no atten- 
tion one way or the other to advertised guarantees. 


Motives 


If an advertiser promises to do something that looks 
to be rather noble and disinterested he should never omit 
to explain his motives for doing so, if he expects to be 
believed. ‘There is always a business reason for doing 
things of this sort. The public knows that to be the 
case and looks for the ‘‘bug under the chip,”’ that is, some 
selfish motive—usually making the wrong guess. 

The guarantee, for instance, is usually announced with 
a flourish as of some great public service. This may ac- 
count for the lack of enthusiasm the public shows for it. 
Publishers guarantee advertisements in the hope of in- 
creasing their pull and so selling more space. ‘They ought 
to say so. Manufacturers guarantee in order to facill- 
tate and speed up sales. They ought to say so. ‘Theirs 
is a legitimate motive and nothing to be ashamed of. 
The explanation would enlist public belief and make the 
guarantee show results. 


260 Masters of Advertising Copy 


There has been an epidemic within very recent times 
of stores announcing reductions of prices, the asserted 
object being to reduce the cost of living or some other 
public-spirited end. ‘The public accepts the lower price 
but not the motive. I am sure the whole advertisement 
would enlist more belief and make more sales if the ad- 
vertiser said—what all of us knew pretty well, as it 
chances that we read the news columns as well as the 
advertising—that sales were slow and previous prices 
failed to move the goods. 

The rising vogue for institutional advertising has 
brought with it a good deal of pompous pretense and a 
considerable effort to paint the enterprise advertised as a 
species of humanitarian effort or as the realized dream 
of an idealist. The average copy writer will take this 
view, if permitted, as easily and inevitably as the aver- 
age commercial artist will pick out and paint the one 
picturesque corner in a grim factory. ‘“‘It is their nature 
to,” God bless them, seeing that they have, respectively, 
the literary and the artistic temperament. 

Only, it would be so much better literature and art if 
each faced the true romance of business, a stern romance 
of hope, struggle, persistence, victory against dragons 
and monsters that spawn in sky-scrapers and emit poi- 
soned breaths of protested checks. ‘There is plenty of 
thrill in business, and plenty of beauty in factories. If 
institutional advertising could let us share the joy of the 
game as the money-winner feels it, and make us under- 
stand why he loves his smoky chimneys like a father, we 
would believe what he prints—which we don’t now. 


Various Media Useful 


Human nature is so made that if the same news reaches 
us from different sources we very soon believe it, while 


O. A. Owen 261 


it might be repeated from one source many times with- 
out winning much added credence. For this reason the 
believability of any concern’s advertising is fostered by 
its appearance in a variety of media, such, for example, 
as newspapers, magazines, car cards and posters, or any 
like combination. I do not know that I can adduce proof 
of this statement from any particular campaign, but I 
think many buyers of advertising will recall successes 
springing from this principle, whether varied media were 
adopted for that reason or an altogether different one. 


Unbelievable Advertising 


The division of labor that obtains in modern adver- 
tising, and some other conditions that surround it, are 
responsible for much advertising of the kind that does 
not command consumer belief and, therefore, pays poorly. 

This situation occurs constantly: A manufacturer em- 
ploys a copy writer, or he employs a manager of some 
sort who in turn employs a writer, or the manufacturer 
accepts the services of an agency and it writes his adver- 
tising. In any event, the employer is the final authority. 
He probably is not fitted for the role so well as the 
agency he hires. Or, if his own man or men write for 
him, he is the blind leading the blind except in the unusual 
case that these men are high-priced experts. Even in 
the latter event they are his minions and will obey him 
pretty closely. 

His business is a part of himself. His personal pride 
and his pride in the product are closely interwoven. He 
is pleased and flattered by praise of his goods in print. 
He can with difficulty be induced to approve a moderate 
style. His whole experience has been with tangibles. 
Here he enters another field where intangibles—mass 
opinion, human nature, literary values—reign. He is 


262 Masters of Advertising Copy 


out of his sphere and does not realize it. Some parts 
of advertising, such as the appropriation, the mechanism 
of circulation, the successes of other advertisers and the 
personalities of the agency heads who meet him as an 
equal, are quite in his line and give him the fallacious 
conviction that advertising is only another phase of that 
business life where he has been winner so far. His 
shrewdness even shows him that much of the “expert”’ 
counsel offered him is not expert. He leans less on pro- 
fessional advice in advertising than he does in matters 
of law, architecture or health, where experts self-evi- 
dently can guide him. 

The net result of his contact with the tangle of pre- 
tense, self-interest, error and waste called advertising is, 
on the whole, an inferior, not very believable and, there- 
fore, expensive kind of advertising, from which only the 
fool-proof quality of advertising itself can be relied on 
to yield the frequent profits it does. 

There can be no complete remedy suggested, but it 
lies within the power of any intelligent advertiser to 
learn what makes advertising believable and then so 
guide his writers that greater profit results. 


XVI 


Looking at Copy and Looking Into It 


Harry E. CLeLANp. A writer for many years of technical 
advertising copy, with agencies and the service departments of 
the large technical publishing houses. Well known as an expert 
in technical advertising and at technical copy. 


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XVI 
Looking at Copy and Looking Into It 
By Harry E. Cleland 


NCE upon a time—thus the story runs—the so- 
O called ‘“‘ad writers’ were cocks o’ the walk and 
ruled the roost. 

Presently some bright genius, who had_ probably 
flopped at “ad writing,’ discovered that copy was not 
all there was to advertising. He climbed the then tallest 
building and trumpeted his message to other aspiring 
‘‘ad writers’? whose pens had likewise wabbled in the 
pinches: ‘‘Welcome to our city!”’ 

After a bit, nearly everybody was convinced that copy, 
far from being the whole of advertising, was something 
that existed on the southernmost hair of the dog’s tail— 
and was put there to annoy the dog. 

Thus this business of advertising see-sawed between 
this and that with the loudest voiced faddist straddling 
the center and teetering the board to his fancy. It suf- 
fered from growing pains in an up-and-down direction. 

Now I submit, with all due respect to the discoverers 
of new ‘isms and to the devotees of whatever the latest 
cult may be, that one basic fact remains true in 
advertising. 

All that the buyer sees is the finished job. Why it got 
there or how, why that place was selected for its appear- 
ance, how many conferences were held before it was 
launched, which thoughts were emphasized and which ex- 

265 


266 Masters of Advertising Copy 


purgated—all these mean nothing in the ardent reader’s 
young life. 

So, you may engross it on parchment and rivet it to the 
linings of your hats that— 

While copy is not all there is to advertising it is all 
there is to an advertisement. 

I include, of course, in the term “‘copy”’ the art-work, 
text and typography. 


Industrial Copy 


Having established the importance of copy, we proceed 
rapidly in a northerly direction to a discussion of indus- 
trial copy as such. 

I take it that this is no kindergarten class in the sub- 
ject and that all of you know your little book and are 
able to write copy yourselves or constructively to criticize 
it. All of us know that there are three things we can 
do well—manage a ball team, run a hotel and write 
advertising. 

It would serve no useful purpose to bring examples of 
bad industrial advertising here and point out their de- 
fects. “That would merely be to pose as an apostle of 
the obvious. 

Nor is there much to be learned from selecting a few 
good advertisements and indicating their merits. They 
may not be as fine as they appear when measured in the 
micrometer of results. 

Criticizing adversely single advertisements with no 
knowledge of the background of them is like condemning 
the population of a city because a few citizens choose to 
commit mayhem. 

Likewise, bringing a few pages of copy here and hold- 
ing them up as examples of excellence, will lead to ejacu- 


Harry E. Cleland 267 


lation of that well-known bromide, ‘“They mean nothing 
to me—my business is ‘different.’ ”’ 

So I have chosen to discuss industrial copy in its 
broader aspects. If we get the foundation sound, the 
superstructure may at least stand up. 


Hobby Riding 


I believe that industrial advertising has been riding a 
hobby too hard and has foundered the beast. It has 
chosen to flock by itself altogether too much on the 
ground that it is a highly specialized form of advertising 
which has nothing in common with general advertising. 
It has proclaimed that there is no kinship between 
lingerie and line-shafting, that perfumery and pumps are 
not on speaking terms and that the principal relationship 
between scented soap and motor trucks is an odor. There 
is some truth in the allegation, of course, but taking it 
too literally is not leading to any improvement in the 
advertising pages of the general run of business papers. 

Humanity averages pretty much the same. To assert 
that business men as such cannot be reached through their 
emotions is a brave attempt to alter fundamentals, but 
it won’t work. Business men are still susceptible to fear, 
beauty, blemish, humor, greed, vanity, ambition and a 
host of other things that mark the difference between 
mere men and that figment of a playwright’s imagination 
—the super-efficient Robot. 

By all means let us be human in industrial copy. A 
man may be an engineer, yet few of them are afflicted 
with that deadly thing known as the engineering mind. 
We are led to believe that most of them have it because 
it is emphasized by being the exception, not the rule. 

A shop-keeper is not so deadly serious about spending 
money to make money that you have to present your 


268 Masters of Advertising Copy 


subject embalmed in a sarcophagus. Smile once in a 
while. Humor is the shock absorber of business. 

Ideas are driven home by contrast. It’s good drama, 
good psychology and good advertising to get your effects 
by light and shade. Not long ago Fred Stone, the 
comedian, whipped from buffoonery to a serious discus- 
sion of religion, and, after the first shock of surprise, 
carried his audience to enthusiastic approval, mainly by 
contrast. 

Your good salesman knows the method and uses it. 
Emulate him. Emulate him all the way through your 
copy if you can and you will never go very far wrong. 

It takes three people to produce a good advertisement. . 
Any more spoil the broth. As you know, they are the 
writer, the artist and the printer. 

I plead for more harmony among them, a more 
sympathetic understanding of the other’s viewpoint. The 
trouble is each one wants to push his own pet into the 
parlor. ‘The result is a lack of balance in advertising 
that makes it repulsive or otherwise inefficacious. I 
have known printers to suggest lifting entire paragraphs 
of text to get certain typographical effects. And I’ve 
known writers to insist on retaining every last word to 
the exclusion of white space and any beauty that the 
printer might have injected into the layout. 


Originality Pays 


We need more originality in industrial copy. When 
one can pick a dozen advertisements out of one technical 
-paper and by simply changing name and address and per- 
haps the half-tone make any one of them apply equally 
well to any of the others, there’s evidence of lack of 
both thought and ideas. There are only words. 

When every first issue in January contains a dozen 


Harry E. Cleland 269 


admonitions to the reader to “begin the New Year 
right,” it’s evidence that somebody’s harkening to Sal- 
vation Nell’s song and is ‘“‘following on.” 

We need better English in industrial copy. By that 
I don’t mean primarily better grammar. I mean that 
we should use this wonderful tool with skill and care so 
that we may inject our ideas into the consciousness of 
our readers and make them stick. 

I remember having hired a writer once upon a single 
word—and my judgment was amply vindicated. ‘There 
wandered into the old Hill Publishing Company a man 
of not over-prepossessing mien who thought he wanted 
to write advertising copy. He was a newspaper re- 
porter. I gave him a test job. The product was a 
machine tool. The concern had invented the term 
‘centralized control” to indicate that the operator could 
stand in one position and manipulate it to perform every 
operation of which the tool was capable. ‘The news- 
paper man in a terse sentence described this and then 
said, “Contrast this with shuttling the operator back 
and forth.” The word, of course, was “‘shuttling’’—a 
picture in itself. That man became one of the best tech- 
nical copy writers and last season the Century Company . 
published his second novel. 

It was Sentimental Tommy, I believe, who lost an 
essay contest because the time limit expired while he was 
searching for a word which didn’t mean precisely this 
nor exactly that but was between the two and yet leaned 
a bit to the latter. ‘Tommy’s opponent became a good 
hack writer. Tommy went on to genuine fame. 

Industrial copy needs this same care in the selection 
of words. It’s only when you’re making a speech to a 
defenseless audience that you can afford to be slipshod. 
And then you shouldn’t! 


270 Masters of Advertising Copy 


How Long Should an Advertisement Be 


Every so often—and sometimes in between—Mr. 
Manufacturer rises to announce that nobody reads long 
advertisements. So the moot question has been and is, 
“How long should an advertisement be?’ Nobody has 
ever answered that question satisfactorily. Certainly it 
should be just long enough to carry its objective and no 
longer. If you can get any satisfaction out of that 
answer, make the most of it. 

One way to shorten copy is to shorten the words. 
Practise writing your headlines and text in words of one 
syllable. You'll be amazed at the strength of your copy. 
All good writing is distinguished by simplicity. It’s the 
essence of strength. For instance, if you wish to indi- 
cate that your material handling machinery reduces the 
working force from ten men to one, you may choose to 
say in your headline—‘‘Manual Labor Materially Re- 
duced” or “It Took Ten Men to Handle This Job Be- 
fore’ or ‘Are You Affected by the National Labor 
Shortage ?”’ 

If I had the job, I should say: “In Place of a Gang, a 
Man!” 

They are all words of one syllable and make a picture 
that almost instantly occurs before the reader’s vision. 


Fat Phrases 


I wonder if you will agree with me that there is too 
much pomposity in industrial copy. It’s usually the re- 
sult of taking our business too damned seriously. It 
waddles around like a very fat and very serious old 
woman. Avoirdupois and dignity may be all right taken 
separately but they make an alarming combination. 

You’ve all read advertisements full of mouth-filling 


Harry E. Cleland 271 


words and turgid rhetoric with an idea buried somewhere 
beneath a mass of phrases. I think that the war and 
excess profits were responsible for this. In any event 
they seemed to occur simultaneously—with no armistice 
yet declared. | 

It was rather discouraging to find that a publisher had 
lately acquired the habit. He wanted to tell the world 
that a certain class of men were the real thing and that 
said world should appreciate the fact. It was a per- 
fectly good and simple theme, but the copy was such that 
only a very patient reader could dig out the idea. 

Now, of course, the answer will be, ‘“‘But look at the 
impression we made and the letters we got!’ But that 
reply fails to move me. ‘That particular line of adver- 
tising was a form of flattery. You can flatter a man in 
any language and with any words and he'll come right 
back and kiss you. 

So I suggest greater simplicity in industrial copy. It 
means greater clearness, less effort on the reader’s part, 
more chance of driving the argument home. Big words 
and long sentences do not denote strength any more than 
a 60-inch waistline does. Look at the master writers of 
English and you’ll find that they get their effects by the 
simplest means. Who was it that said, ‘‘You must for- 
give the length of this letter. I haven’t time enough to 
write a short one.” 


Modern Advertising Writers 


Witness the master advertising writers of to-day. 
Does Fletcher search for words that he himself cannot 
understand? Not on your life! Yet he makes an imi- 
tation pearl seem more alluring than the real thing and a 
barber shop, by the magic of his pen, becomes a life 
extension institute. When Jim Henry, salesman, takes 


272 Masters of Advertising Copy 


his stubby pencil in hand, and chews the end off, does 
he try to impress by his erudition? Not so that it can 
be observed! Yet Mennen’s went on the map with a 
bang and stayed there. 

I quote these examples of writing from the general 
field because that is where we must go to find the best. 
As I remarked at the beginning of this talk, it’s time to 
drop our insular attitude and take a look at the world 
around us. 

Any of these writers whose work we admire could 
take a highly specialized industrial account and write 
copy of the same distinctive character. 

In our organization we recently established a service 
department and to get away from that musty old word 
we call it the Results Department. It was placed in 
charge of a man who, knowing none of the traditions or 
precedents of the average business paper, will probably 
break all the unwritten laws—and thereby make a great 
success. 

I believe that a higher premium should be placed on 
advertising writing. I don’t mean by that that any 
one should have his salary boosted to-morrow. But 
make it an incentive to become a writer and stay one. 
The trouble now is that you develop a first-class man 
and then “promote” him to assistant manager or club 
salesman. As a matter of fact such a move should not 
be a promotion at all. I have never heard of an asso- 
ciation of advertising writers, but there should be one. 
And one of its principal jobs should be to advertise the 
value and importance of copy. 


Ideas Are Needed 


We need more ideas in advertising copy. An oil 
company conceived the idea of publishing in its adver- 


Harry E. Cleland 273 


tising the exact grade of its lubricant to use in every 
make of automobile. Naturally every car owner ran 
down the list to find his baby and the kind of oil that 
would keep it healthy. 

A bookkeeping-machine concern took accounting out 
from under the shadow of the pen—and showed the pen 
and its drab shadow in every advertisement. 

The maker of a hand shovel—one of the commonest 
of tools—painted a red edge on his product and it 
marked a red-letter day in the history of that business. 

A paint maker, instead of sticking to the rubber stamp 
method of naming his product ‘‘white enamel,” calls it 
‘barreled sunlight.” 

Those are ideas—for lack of a better name—which 
show some thought. The advertising writer should 
daily beseech his Maker, ‘‘Oh, Lord, this day make me 
think!” 

The correct writing of copy is not a science nor any- 
thing like it, unless common sense be a science. It can- 
not be guided by mathematical rules nor governed by 
immutable laws. 

Whenever we think we have established some stand- 
ard, somebody breaks all the measurements—and gets 
away to a huge success. 


Formidable? 


However, there are certain things the young aspirant 
should study. A study of form and balance and decora- 
tion to lend beauty—sturdy or delicate—to his layout. 
A study of grammar and rhetoric, of course. A study 
of the style of the best writers of English prose—ancient 
and modern. A close observation and study of human 
nature, its frailities and strength, and something of the 
psychology of the crowd. 


274 Masters of Advertising Copy 


A formidable program, perhaps, but a necessary one 
if we are to have our copy in the hands of men who will 
do their share toward making the advertising dollar 
worth par. 

This advertising dollar is a circle of many segments. 
One of the largest is copy. Lift it out and you leave 
a gaping void which cannot be filled by some c’ eap 
expedient. There is no substitute for it. 


XVII 
The Human Side of It 


Wizsur D. Nessir began work as a printer. He followed 
that by newspaper work, as reporter and city editor. As ad- 
vertising manager of a department store in Indianapolis he 
began writing jingles, which led to his producing the news- 
paper features for which he is well known. From that work 
he turned again to advertising. He is one of the best known 
copy writers and account executives. He is the author of a 
number of books, as well as of the highly popular patriotic 
poem, “Your Flag and My Flag.” He is president of the Forty 
Club, Chicago’s famous dinner organization; has been president 
twice of the Indiana Society of Chicazto; formerly president of 
the Chicago Advertising Club. 


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XVII 
The Human Side of It 
By Wilbur D. Nesbit 


do something for him, or offering to show him how 

he can be happier, how he can better himself. If 
we were to say to a man: ‘“‘You don’t want to buy a phono- 
graph, do you?” we would at once suggest “No” for an 
answer. But if we presuppose that he knows a great deal 
about phonographs, that the social position of his family 
demands a phonograph of real beauty as well as of me- 
chanical excellence, and if our headline intimates to him 
that his own sincere judgment will be in favor of the Blank 
Machine, we will get much further with him. An adver- 
tising campaign setting forth the advantages of canned 
fruits and vegetables used well, displayed headlines tell- 
ing that the first canned goods were put up for 
Napoleon’s army. ‘That historical fact jolted the dor- 
mant attention of the reader at once. Hesaw Napoleon 
planning his great campaigns and depending on cans of 
corn and beans and peaches to help him win. ‘There 
are many advertisements of razors and shaving soaps. 
The first successful safety razor was blazoned to the 
possible user by the alluring promise of “No Honing, 
No Stropping.” If you desire to instil human interest 
into advertising a shaving soap or a razor, get down 
your history and read how Alexander the Great inaugu- 
rated the custom of shaving. Historical characters are 

277 


N OU can always get a man’s attention by offering to 


278 Masters of Advertising Copy 


always interesting and always attract attention to an 
advertisement. 

The heading of an advertisement is much like the title 
of astory. Kipling is a master at devising titles. “The 
Man Who Would be King’’ arouses our interest and 
attracts our attention, for example, much more than if it 
were “An Episode in India.”” ‘Barrack Room Ballads,” 
as the title for a book of poems, whets one’s curiosity. 
It brings up a mental picture of a long barracks room, 
with jovial soldiers lounging about and blending their 
voices in song. It has color and life in it. If that 
book had been called “A Book of Indian Poems”’ it 
would not have taken such a hold on the public. 

One of the prominent magazines published an article 
about a man who has been a cripple all his life; it tells 
how this man realized his ambitions and made a success 
of himself. If the magazine had featured the story as 
“The Story of a Cripple,” it might have attracted the 
attention of a few sympathetic souls, but when it was 
blazoned on the cover as “A Wonder Story of Will 
Power,” it grew into something different and greater. 
Similarly, a magazine article entitled “A Man Who Has 
Loaned Millions to Other People” puts the glamour of 
romance about a narrative of a man who organized a new 
kind of savings banks. 

White space will attract attention. A proper margin 
of white space about an advertisement emphasizes the 
headlines and the text. 

Interest can only be aroused by sincerity. Interest 
must be cumulative. Notice how a public speaker holds 
his audience. He does not crowd his climaxes; he does 
not utilize his strongest points first of all. He begins by 
attracting the attention of his audience. He opens his 
address with a statement with which the audience will 
either agree or disagree. If possible he gets the sym- 


Wilbur D. Nesbit 279 


pathy of his audience. His next line of thought will be 
something that increases the interest of his hearers. If 
he is earnest, if he is sincere, his earnestness and sin- 
cerity become contagious. An audience soon loses in- 
terest in a speaker who is obviously not wholly sincere, 
not interested in his own argument. Similarly a reader 
discerns very quickly when a writer is “writing against 
space.’ And once you lose the interest of a reader you 
lose that reader—that possible customer. 

The greatest interest of all is self-interest. If you 
can plan and word your advertisement so that it is 
apparently written from the reader’s side, it will hold 
his attention. He will feel that it is a sympathetic kind 
of advertisement, that it has his welfare at heart. A 
manufacturer of typewriters was planning an advertising 
campaign. He was eager to get away from the beaten 
path, to avoid talking about cams and ratchets and 
cogwheels and type bars. He reasoned that the buyer 
and user of a typewriter was not necessarily a trained 
mechanic, nor was he interested in mechanical specifica- 
tions. He desired a real selling thought embodied in his 
advertising, and it must be a selling thought that was 
obviously in the interest of the customer, for therein lay 
his great opportunity of gaining the sympathy of his 
readers. He evolved the idea of showing that his type- 
writer was so well made that it would stand the hardest 
usage and still be a good machine after service of a year, 
or two years, or even three or more years. His adver- 
tisements told that here at last was a typewriter that did 
not need to be bought with the definite understanding 
that it would be taken in trade later on. With this idea 
as the starting point it was possible to weave in mechani- 
cal arguments without using mechanical terms. Over 
and over this thought was expressed in his advertising, 
and as a result of the campaign his typewriter gained a 


280 Masters of Advertising Copy 


prominence it had not enjoyed before. He attracted 
attention, he aroused interest, he argued persuasively, 
and he induced action—he made sales. 

The question is often asked: How long should an 
advertisement be? It has been argued that all that can 
be told in any advertisement may be expressed in a few 
terse sentences. An advertisement should be like the 
story attributed to Abraham Lincoln. It was said that 
he was asked how long a man’s legs should be. He re- 
plied: “Long enough to reach from his body to the 
ground.” 

An advertisement should be long enough to tell its 
story. No longer and no shorter. If you will imagine 
an advertisement as a salesman, telling a stranger about 
a new product, you can visualize the efforts of that sales- 
man to attract attention, to arouse interest, to present 
his argument, and to make the sale. A few terse sen- 
tences will not suffice. If the salesman were to stand 
before the customer and bark epigrammatic sentences at 
him, the customer would be apt to turn on his heel and 
seek a more pleasing conversationalist. On the other 
hand, if the salesman were to drift into an interminable 
harangue, the customer would be apt to excuse himself 
and go where he would be given a chance at least to 
think, if not to take a little part in the conversation 
himself. 

For this reason it is better to avoid trying to tell it all 
in one advertisement. Selling an automobile, for exam- 
ple, is not a matter of getting the prospect’s check on his 
first visit: Patience, the emphasizing of a different 
quality or feature each time the prospective customer is 
in the salesroom, is the good salesman’s method. 

Analyzing the product and its possible market brings 
out many good selling points, each of which may well 
be selected as the subject for an individual advertisement. 


Wilbur D. Nesbit 281 


In time it will be found that one or two of these are 
the best selling points. Then they will be used as the 
keynotes and the other points woven in with them. A 
phonograph, for instance, may be advertised because of 
its tonal quality. But in time this emphasis will be found 
to be losing its force. ‘Then the advertising will be 
changed to bring out the beauty of the cabinet, showing 
that the musical charm of the instrument is receiving a 
housing in keeping with its superiority; and so on, point 
by point. There are few articles which cannot offer at 
least ten good points—subjects for separate advertise- 
ments. 

You must consider the people who are to buy the 
article you are advertising. In writing advertisements 
of gloves, we may say, you will use a different argument 
to persuade a woman to purchase a fine dress glove than 
you would to induce a man to buy a working glove. 

In the one case you would appeal to woman’s natural 
love of beauty. You would show how the glove en- 
hanced the natural charm of her hand, how it gave her 
the finishing touch of being well-groomed. You would 
mention the fact that the gloves are the last to be put 
on, that they either make or mar the costume. Then 
you would tell how carefully these gloves are made, 
how exactly they are stitched, how they have been de- 
signed, perhaps, by some eminent glove-artist in Paris, 
and so on. And you would never forget to impress her 
with the fact that these gloves bear the seal of the latest 
fashion. 

But with the work glove you would go about your task 
in another way. You would show how ruggedly it is 
made, how stoutly it is stitched. You would tell how 
long wear and great durability are made into it. You 
would tell how well it fits the hand, and how it really 
helps to do better work because it supports the muscles 


282 Masters of Advertising Copy 


of the hand when they are weary. Your imagination 
would have you at work, out in the cold, wearing a pair 
of those gloves and doing the best day’s work you ever 
accomplished because of that fact. 

You would make the woman feel that here was some- 
body who was accustomed to moving in the best society 
and knew what was the exactly correct mode in dress 
gloves; you would make the man feel that here was 
somebody who knew what hard work was and who knew 
through experience how to select a glove that would 
lighten that hard work. 

Some people, in writing advertisements, either acci- 
dentally or purposely omit asking the reader to buy the 
article advertised. Now, the end and aim of an adver- 
tisement is to sell, not just to get the reader mildly 
interested, so that some time when he is down town he 
will, if he happens to think of it, go into a store and ask 
to be shown whatever it was that was advertised. Your 
advertisement should convince the reader that he is going 
to be more than satisfied with his purchase, and should 
put him in a purchasing mood. Often a writer will 
think it really beneath his dignity to say to his reader: 
‘Please buy this.”” He feels as if this puts him behind 
a counter, serving whoever comes down the aisle. Yet 
that is just what he is doing, and if he believes in himself, 
and believes in the goods he is advertising, and believes 
in the manufacturer of those goods, he is performing 
a true service when he leads his reader to make the 
purchase. 

If you are writing an advertisement for a kitchen 
cabinet or a refrigerator, you will not write it as you 
would one for a piano or for a library table. Pianos 
and library tables have their elements of beauty; they 
are to be seen as well as to be used. They are in the 
higher sphere of life. But the refrigerator is not always 


Wilbur D. Nesbit 283 


a spotless thing of beauty, holding fresh fruits and meats 
and eggs and other appetizing things. Nor is the kitchen 
cabinet always standing, immaculate, against the wall, its 
door glistening and its shelves arrayed with shining jars 
and glittering knives and things. ‘here are days when 
both refrigerator and cabinet must be cleaned. A maker 
of refrigerators and a maker of kitchen cabinets kept 
this in mind in their advertisements. “They told how the 
refrigerator would keep things fresh and sweet, and 
how the cabinet would save thousands of steps and 
lighten the work in the kitchen. But they also told, and 
told very emphatically, how easy it was to scrub and wash 
and clean the refrigerator and the cabinet. ‘They told 
of smooth surfaces—no square panels or corners to catch 
and hold dust or dirt and grease. They put a ‘“‘Saturday- 
night clean-up’? atmosphere into their advertisements, 
and they convinced the women who read them that they 
had at heart the interests of the women who had to work 
at keeping house. And their campaigns succeeded. 

There is nothing that one man sells and another man 
buys that does not have its angle of human appeal. 

It must meet a human need, satisfy a human desire, or 
gratify a human whim. 

A musical comedy gratifies the very human wish for 
color and sound; a drama appeals to human sentiment; 
a story, to human understanding; and a sermon, to human 
conviction. 

The successful advertisement approaches the reader 
along the same lines. 

As we have said, there is no business organization that 
does not have in it and of it an individuality, whether of 
one man or a composite of many men. 

The greater this individuality the greater the success 
of the business organization. Advertising is the expres- 
sion of this characteristic, of this human appeal. 


284 Masters of Advertising Copy 


You cannot submerge or suppress it; advertising to be 
good, must extend the personality of the concern to its 
prospective customers. 

It is just as much a part of the policy and the operation 
of the concern as is its product. 

Good advertising is virtually a product of the house 
it advertises. It serves the customers of that house. 

Good advertising is good nature. Good nature is the 
greatest human appeal on earth; not “‘jollying,”’ not light- 
ness of verbiage, but the good nature of sincerity, of 
friendliness. 

That sort of advertising makes people glad to read 
it. If a man can write that kind of copy, people are 
always going to stop at the page holding this advertise- 
ment, and stop with pleasant anticipation. You can read 
an advertisement and come pretty near telling what kind 
of treatment the advertiser will give you. His indi- 
viduality cannot be kept out of his advertising. If it is 
his advertising. 

Advertising should be the advance agent of satisfac- 
tion. It represents the good faith of the house and must 
be as trustworthy and as confidence-begetting as the 
guarantee that goes with the goods. Some people buy 
things because they need them; some buy things because 
they are curious to know about them; some buy things 
because somebody else buys them; but all buy things be- 
cause they want them. 

Good advertising creates the want; good merchandis- 
ing meets it. 

Successful advertising is interwoven with successful 
merchandising and vice versa. ‘The successful house, 
large or small, is the one that makes a human appeal, 
day in and day out, to its possible and its present 
customers. 


Wilbur D. Nesbit 285 


The advertiser who believes in himself and in his goods 
inspires other people to share his belief. 

The man who writes his copy approaches him as do his 
potential customers. It is for him to acquire the adver- 
tiser’s enthusiastic belief. If he does that he cannot fail 
to show it in the copy. This kind of belief projects 
itself in simple, strong, earnest copy which commands 
the confidence of the reader and convinces him. 

That is human appeal—contagious belief. 

Human nature is the same in all phases of life. There 
has to be, there is, a human side to every advertising 
problem. Nine times out of ten it is the individuality 
of the organization whose product is to be advertised. 

Put that individuality, that sincere, earnest belief, into 
it, and there is a natural and willing response. 

A good advertisement follows the line of human ap- 
peal, which is by way of the heart and mind. 


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XVIII 
Copy That Is and Isn't 


Harry Tipper. Born in Kendal, England. Educated at 
Kendal Science School. Experience in engineering, sales and 
advertising. Formerly: President of the Association of Na- 
tional Advertisers; president of the Advertising Club of New 
York City; president of the New York Business Publishers 
Association; at one time advertising manager and member of 
Sales Committee of the Texas Co. At present General Man- 
ager, General Motors Corporation Export Company. Author 
of Human Factors in Industry, Discussion on Labor, The New 
Business, Advertising, Its Principles and Practices, Advertising 
Campaigns. 


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XVIII 
Copy That Is and Isn't 
By Harry Tipper 


race only progresses in so far as necessity compels 

it to do so, and I think that is, in quite a con- 
siderable measure, true. When a channel of com- 
munication is open, we are not apt to question its efficiency, 
but merely to use it. Before the war, we were carrying 
on our transactions with South America in a financial way 
through London, because there was a piece of machinery 
in London whereby bills of exchange could be promptly 
discounted from any quarter of the globe. We were 
quite content, therefore, to use that channel without 
finding out whether there was a better way of doing it. 
Similarly we were quite content, before the war, to take 
the by-product of coal, in its raw state, and ship it to 
Germany and get it back in the shape of dyes and chemi- 
cals, without considering whether there was some way 
by which we could utilize that by-product to make those 
things ourselves. It always happens that in the growth 
of industry or of any branch of it, precedents, traditions, 
established methods of doing things become so inherently 
a part of the customs of the industry that we fail to 
realize their proportionate values until some revolution, 
some abrupt change, some panic or some financial read- 
justment compels us to go over the whole phase of the 
industry with a new mind and a new light. 

289 


() NE of the philosophers has said that the human 


290 Masters of Advertising Cop 


In advertising, as in the rest of business, we must 
examine our work with the object of cutting out the 
waste, and I think we must realize that economy, that 
is, wise expenditure, which is the real meaning of econ- 
omy, is a matter of education and not a natural quality. 
It is observed always that the most ignorant people are 
the least careful in their expenditures. It is observed 
that people, who do not know, fear most to depart from 
precedent, because they cannot analyze the situation so as 
to take a new path wisely. 

Therefore, in considering advertising, what is waste 
and what is efficient and wise expenditure in advertising, 
we must reckon with the fact that it will take a great 
deal more intensive concentration, analysis and consid- 
eration of the details of advertising in order to expend 
the money wisely and eliminate the waste and not the 
useful portion. 

That means that we have to make every unit of adver- 
tising a little more efficient, do a little more work, and 
do that work with less waste, less delay, and with less 
weakness in its operation. One of the important ways 
of making each unit of advertising more successful is in 
a study of the copy that we are to use in filling the units 
of space that we occupy with advertising, whether that 
space be on a letterhead, whether it be in a pamphlet, 
whether it be in a publication or upon a signboard. All 
our work is confined within limits of space, and we must 
measure, therefore, our wise expenditures by the value of 
the unit of space, as completed and used. 

I think that the question of copy is of considerable 
importance to the advertising man, a little more impor- 
tant to-day than at any other time, because, in times 
of prosperity, when buying is easy and therefore inten- 
sive selling not so acute, it is difficult to determine 
whether we succeed because of an expenditure or in spite 


Harry Tipper 291 


of an expenditure, and I fear that our conclusions are 
frequently clouded by the general success and include as 
measures of success lots of things which would in other 
circumstances have become measures of failure. 

So, in taking up the question of advertising copy, I 
do not believe that it is necessary-to make any apology 
for considering it as important. As a matter of fact, 
the only thing which connects the advertiser with his 
public is the character of his copy. Everything else is 
simply a vehicle by which the copy can reach the man 
to whom the advertiser addresses himself, and, there- 
fore, while copy is but one thing out of many, copy can 
exist and can work with little or no attention to the rest 
of the matter, but the rest of it cannot exist and cannot 
work unless attention is paid to copy. 

It seems that copy is a matter which escapes defi- 
nition. It refuses to be confined within adamantine 
limitations. It has nothing in common with mathemati- 
cal formula or standardization, and it must be so when, 
in writing, we use a method of communication which can 
weave words so that they represent, as one writer has 
put it, the adamantine rigidity of a statue or can so 
liquefy words that they can coalesce individual opinions 
into a general sentiment. When a thing can be used for 
the limitations of the most mathematical and specialized 
operations, and at the same time be used to bring en- 
thusiasm into a group of men on the most intangible 
and metaphysical of sentiment, such a medium can hardly 
be the subject of one definition or be expressed in a set 
of specifications with the possibilities of a standardiza- 
tion. In fact, it is necessary in considering such a sub- 
ject to have recourse rather to the statement of what 
cannot be done than the statement of what can be done, 
for out of one hundred ways of saying a thing, ninety- 
nine ways may be the ways in which it should not be said. 


292 Masters of Advertising Copy 


In approaching the subject of copy, therefore, I do not 
propose to dwell upon those intangible platitudes with 
which you have been bombarded for nine or ten years, 
indicating the attention-value, the interest, the convic- 
tion and the action contained in copy, because even 
though those platitudes may be true, they mean nothing 
when we are through with them, but I do propose to 
talk about four elements which copy must contain and 
which mark the success of copy in accordance with the 
degree with which they are used, and I name them in 
the order of the importance which I would attach to 
them: Knowledge of the audience. Knowledge of the 
subject. Knowledge of the language. Sincerity of 
purpose. 

Walter Raleigh in his book, On Style, says that the 
speaker automatically provides his own audience. ‘One 
touch of the archaic in his words, and the doors are 
closed and the people are assembled in the seclusion of 
the quiet drawing-room, while a single turn of peasant 
speech or a rustic meaning given to a word which is not 
allowed in genteel parlance, and the roof is blown off 
the villa, and the inhabitants are set wriggling in the 
unaccustomed sunshine’; so that the man who writes 
makes his own audience, and if he does not understand 
the audience that he wants to reach, he will not reach it, 
whether he has ten million circulation or not, and whether 
he uses the best media that the country provides or not. 

And yet we know audiences very little and study them, 
as advertising men, somewhat less. 

You, of course, know of the historic advertiser that 
Frank Holliday so enjoys telling about, who has been 
advertising rubber boots in Texas for a number of years, 
when the country people in Texas wear leather boots 
and the city people wear rubbers. You have seen copy 
which has been sent out by the advertiser, with the same 


Harry Tipper 293 


type, with the same surroundings, with the same illustra- 
tions and with the same sentiment expressed, appearing 
in the National Geographic and Vanity Fair at the same 
time, without any change. In fact, I have seen copy 
going to the technical engineer, to the merchandising 
dealer, and to the layman, who had no interest in either 
of the other two, without a single change and from the 
same place. 

And then, think of the generalities which must occur 
when you don’t know your audience, because if you can- 
not speak the language of the people, you are confined to 
those generalities which, meaning so little, cannot be 
criticized. We have some adjectives that have been so 
thoroughly worked out that we cannot use them our- 
selves. [hey have been misplaced and misused to such 
an extent that we can’t even consider them. 

I took about fifteen pieces of copy advertising one 
type of product, cut off the illustration and the rest of 
the identifying material, and then a couple of days after- 
wards tried to remember which was which. It was 
almost impossible. The remarkable unanimity of state- 
ment and .the almost complete generalization of claim 
made it practically impossible to find any individuality. 

Let us grant for the moment that advertising is suc- 
cessful from the mere reiteration of the name—as 
Matthew Arnold said, ‘‘beating it upon our weary brains 
like a hawker’—and that from mere familiarity and 
identification we can impress to a degree the audience of 
indiscriminating laymen, yet at what an expense of waste 
that must be, at what a tremendous ineficiency! 

We are so inefficient in advertising that if we get 2 
per cent returns from a magazine in inquiries, when we 
go out directly for inquiries, we are getting something 
to be really proud of, and if we get one-quarter of 2 
per cent in orders from the inquiries, we are again 


294. Masters of Advertising Copy 


elated, which means that we are getting just one-half of 
one per cent of the possibility of our work. 

But that is not the only way in which we fail to study 
our audience. We fail to study the language of the 
specialized audience that we must reach. I would not 
be a bit surprised but what the failure to secure the proper 
results from specialized publications lies largely with the 
failure of the advertising man to get in and understand 
the audience that reads those publications. I question 
very much whether you, any more than [| did, find it 
possible to study the audience of a particular medium 
through its editorial columns, as you should. If you are 
receiving a hundred and fifty magazines every month— 
and of course you don’t look through them all at the 
ofice—how many of them do you understand editorially 
—I+ mean, not the editorials but the people who read 
them? And if you don’t understand those people who 
read them, how are you going to write to them 
effectively ? 

Passing on from that element to the second one— 
knowledge of the subject—lI think we have gone a long 
way from this question in the last few years. In fact, 
I have heard it stated in some quarters that a writer is 
better off if he doesn’t know a subject. It is true that 
there are some men, and they are reasonably scarce in 
this world, who are provided with such a facility of lan- 
guage and such a capacity for adaptation, that they are 
able to seize upon the essential features of a possibility 
and present it to an audience with a very superficial 
acquaintance with it. But the average man is neither 
eloquent nor discerning unless he knows his subject, and 
I don’t believe that the average man is any more eloquent 
or discerning in his written language than he is in his 
spoken language. We are working, in the advertising 
business, with the average man. We have thousands of 


Harry Tipper 295 


copy writers, we have thousands of people who must 
write to this public that we reach, and they can’t be all 
of that scarce character of genius which has a native ca- 
pacity for adaptation of language. Yet we say it is 
not necessary to know the subject. That perhaps is 
another reason why we have such a lot of glittering gen- 
eralities about a product. 

The machinist knows that no two machines made 
from the same patterns, machined and measured with the 
same micrometers, gauged to the same gauges and fin- 
ished in the same assembly shop are quite alike, and any 
man who has worked with machines for weeks at a time, 
as I have worked with them, knows that you must humor 
one machine a little differently from the other. And no 
two products were ever quite alike. And certainly no 
two business organizations that produce those products 
were ever quite alike. If it is not possible for the adver- 
tising man to know his subject well enough to seize upon 
the individuality of his own product and present it to his 
audience, his work is undoubtedly inefficient and he has 
lost the large opportunity of his purpose. Knowledge 
of the subject should be absolutely a sine qua non in 
advertising. 

It is true that every man who knows his subject does 
not necessarily know how to write about it, but if a 
man have the first primary quality, which I have stated 
before and regard as of the most importance—the 
knowledge of his audience—and follow that with the 
knowledge of his subject, then, indeed, he can write, and 
write so as to express eloquently to his audience the pos- 
sibilities that lie within his own grasp. 

Knowledge of the subject, to my mind, is something 
which we have sadly neglected in almost all of our adver- 
tising. Why should you insult an engineer by addressing 
him as a layman? Why should you pretend that a mer- 


296 Masters of Advertising Copy 


chant who is merchandising his goods cannot be reached 
in merchant language and with the merchant individuali- 
ties of your product? Why should you think that the 
man who reads the National Geographic reads it from 
the same angle and expects the same language as the 
woman who reads Vanity Fair? Why is it that we can’t 
spend more on the individual piece, wisely expend in 
time and money and make the individual piece really 
count for a much larger percentage of actual action? 

Some people asked me a few years ago how it came 
about that in the outdoor advertising of the Texas Com- 
pany I succeeded in getting so many head-on signs, par- 
ticularly at the curves of the road, Well, it happened 
for just one reason: because I knew I didn’t know any- 
thing about billboards; and, knowing nothing about them, 
and knowing that I wanted to use them, I decided to sit 
in the driver’s seat of the motor car and find out what 
he could see and where he could see it and how much his 
vision varied under different conditions. [I spent three 
thousand miles in the car, fifteen hundred just making 
general observations, and fifteen hundred with a little 
circle inscribed on the wind shield and cross lines to it, 
so that I could measure a little bit. Then I decided that 
the only things that I wanted were certain signs in certain 
places, and it didn’t make any difference to me whether 
they were a little more expensive, because I knew that in 
total effect I would get four or five times the individual 
return. 

Now, that is the way that business progresses, not 
perhaps by spending more upon the individual efforts, 
but by gaining so much more out of the individual effort 
that the total expenditure of effort and of time and 
money for a given return is less. 

It is an increase of the unit value of space that we 
are after. Just look at the advertising yourself next 


Harry Tipper IM 


time you pick up a magazine and compare that adver- 
tising with some of the old mail-order and patent medi- 
cine copy that we laugh at, that was set in six-point type 
and had no surroundings at all, and pulled to “beat the 
band.” Notice the human difference between the way 
the one writer appealed to the audience and the way 
the other writer is appealing to the audience. It is true 
that we must know the surroundings, we must know why 
a certain kind of type represents an angular, square, con- 
structive definition, and why another style of type repre- 
sents an artistic and elusive proposition, and why a 
certain type of border belongs in the material side of 
things and another type of border attaches itself to the 
sentimental. We should know those things from the 
history of type and from the history of decoration, but 
all of that is simply to heighten the very message we have 
to give, simply to lend additional force by the physical 
appearance to what we have written, and not to support 
the egregious blunders that we make in the actual writing. 

Further, this matter of knowledge of the subject goes 
a little deeper, for unless we know the organization that 
we are dealing with and the product that we have to 
sell, we will not only find it difficult to reach the audience, 
but we will find it difficult to understand the whole busi- 
ness of advertising in that connection, for human nature 
does not discriminate, according to our values, with our 
products; it does not view them in the same way that 
we view them. The outside, general human nature has 
nothing in common with our ordinary point of view as 
manufacturers, and it is not steeped in the endless opera- 
tions that belong to that product. It views them from a 
different point of view, and, therefore, we must know 
something of the subject, as well as something of the 
audience in order to translate what we know into what 


298 Masters of Advertising Copy 


they will understand. Unless we know it, how can we 
translate it? 

The third point that I want to bring out is knowledge 
of the language. I have counted fourteen different auto- 
mobile advertisements that were either “superior,” “the 
most beautiful” or “the smartest’? (or some other word 
of that kind) ‘‘car in America.’”’ Now, surely, there is 
something more about that wonderful construction, ‘‘the 
automobile” of any particular make, than that kind of a 
statement. Why, it embodies the brains of wonderful 
engineers, it has taken thousands of men to make it and 
has all kinds of separate and distinct parts in it that are 
themselves a beauty because of their strict usefulness. 
Can’t anything be said of that but a mere word, that it 
is “the smartest,” a superlative that means less than 
anything else, a qualification that does not qualify and 
a statement that really doesn’t claim? 

And yet perhaps we are a little bit like the man whom 
Walter Raleigh talks about, who, ‘“‘being introduced to a 
language of a hundred thousand words that quiver 
through a million of meanings, is tempted by the very 
wealth of inheritance to be careless and is content if, out 
of those million highly tempered swords, he can con- 
struct a few clumsy coulters.’”’ For language is some- 
thing which cannot be used by the careless. It is like 
putting an inefficient workman in charge of the finest of 
instruments, which must be handled by the most delicate 
of craftsman’s hands, for it has grown up through the 
centuries, expressing at every stage some additional 
values of human emotion or human activity or human 
operation that have accrued to it, that have invented 
new combinations of letters to express themselves; it is 
in itself an epitome of human progress from beginning 
to end. If we knew how to use it, we should be able to 
write it. If we knew the language we should then know 


Harry Tipper 299 


something of the audience itself, for it has expressed 
within it the whole gamut of human emotions. But we 
know so little that the average man’s vocabulary is not 
more than between five hundred and one thousand words 
out of the hundred thousand that are possessed by us, 
and even of those words only about three hundred are 
ordinarily used, because in conversation, as a writer put 
it, in the ordinary flow of talk, not accuracy but im- 
mediacy of expression is required, and one passes on with 
his inadequate expression lest he be left in the belated 
analysis as the tide of talk flows past him. He wants 
to be immediate and not accurate, because he knows that 
his sympathetic hearer will infer from his own poverty 
what he himself could not express. 

But for us who attempt to reach thousands to millions 
of people at one time, such an inadequacy of expression 
cannot be countenanced, and it is impossible in written 
language to allow the inferences which may be allowed 
in conversational tones, just as it is impossible to stand 
up on a platform and say the things as they would be 
said if the platform were not there. So we cannot 
afford to know language as little as the people that we 
reach. We must know language at least well enough 
to be simple, and it is astonishing how much knowledge 
it takes to be really simple. It is a curious thing about 
all mechanical arts, that they have progressed from crude 
complication to simplicity, so that they represent now in 
any one single machine more beauty than they ever did, 
because of the fact that the superfluities have been cut 
away. It is true that it has taken thousands and thou- 
sands of men to reduce one of those superfluities, and 
that it has taken more and more parts to make the 
operation more simple, just as it is true that it takes more 
study to understand language and it takes more words to 
arrive at a simple definition, more knowledge of words. 


300 Masters of Advertising Copy 


You cannot expect to be lucid unless you know sufficiently 
of language to know why a word should not be used in a 
particular connection. 

But back and above all this estimate of some of the 
fundamentals that are required in good copy and some 
of the things that we ought to do and do not do in 
copy, lies the one feature which must be a part of the 
writer’s equipment, if he is to reach his audience, and 
that is sincerity of purpose. It is particularly true of the 
written word, what is true to some degree of the spoken 
word, that no man carries conviction unless he himself 
be convinced, for the written word has a way of carrying 
its Own insincerity upon its face, of measuring to the cold 
eye of the man who reads it, without the atmospheric 
surroundings that help the speaker, of measuring to him 
the fallacies and the lack of conviction of the writer. So 
that we are able to say, as we read the books that have 
been written, that a writer here was playing for effect, 
that he was not convinced, that he was just constructing 
a frame-work for a particular purpose, and that it didn’t 
flow out of the fullness of his heart, as thoroughly and 
firmly convinced of the desirability of action. 

And how, I ask, are you to be convincing if you don’t 
know the audience, if you don’t know the subject and if 
you don’t know the language? 

People say to me sometimes, “You know, I have an 
idea if I could only express it,” but they forget that 
thought is born in language and that thought does not 
exist without words, and that anything which cannot be 
expressed is not. They forget that consciousness only 
begins with a spoken communication, and that there is 
no such thing in the world for useful purposes as an idea 
that cannot be expressed, and the very usefulness which 
we have is limited to the possibilities of our expression. 
There is little use in being sincere if we cannot translate. 


Harry Tipper 301 


I stood in New York the last day that Marshal 
Joftre was visible there, and I managed to hear a few 
words he said, but my French is not very good, and he 
spoke French rather rapidly, and it didn’t connect. It 
was undoubtedly very beautiful, very fine, but it made 
no impression upon me, because [| couldn’t understand 
it. And why should you talk to people in Louisiana in 
phrases which are not known beyond the boundaries of 
the Eastern States? Why shouldn’t you get down, when 
you talk to Louisiana, to the language that they know at 
home, the particular phraseology they use there? 

I remember that some of the most successful copy 
I ever made for the State of Texas was written in 
Houston, Texas, in my office there, and six weeks after 
I got back to New York I couldn’t write it. I had lost 
just the touch of the local atmosphere that was necessary 
to make the difference between ordinary copy and unusu- 
ally efficient copy. 

Finally, of all the things which man has to do, there 
is nothing quite so great as that of impressing other 
people or expressing to other people in writing. The 
whole of the accumulated knowledge of the world is 
compassed in a few books, because it is written. We 
have progressed in the mechanical arts, we have pro- 
gressed in those other arts that are not yet purely me- 
chanical, because we have been able to gather into our 
books the thoughts and the operations of thousands upon 
thousands of brains, doing a little, improving here and 
there and all over, and have brought that down so that 
in a few years a new generation can accumulate all that 
is necessary of what has gone before. There is nothing 
quite so great as the possibility of expressing to your 
people in written language. 

While this is but one of the operations of advertising, 
and while it is not always the most important operation 


302 Masters of Advertising Copy 


of advertising, I believe that a thorough knowledge of 
the fundamentals of copy will so illuminate all the rest 
of the advertising problem that a study of it will make 
us even better business men than we are, and certainly 
much greater advertising men in the time when our efh- 
ciency must be increased. 


XIX 


The Sales Power of Good Copy as Demon- 
strated in Book Advertising 


HELEN Woopwarp. Famous for her highly successful ad- 
vertising copy for books and sets of books. Her advertisements 
for Mark Twain’s and O. Henry’s works brought quite re- 
markable direct selling results and set a new standard for book 
advertising of that type. 


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se xt 
XIX 


The Sales Power of Good Copy as Demon- 
strated in Book Advertising 


By Helen Woodward 


the United States has increased very much in the 

last few years. But this increase has been very 
small compared to the increase in the users of other 
luxuries—for instance, the users of fine silk stockings, 
good perfumes, automobiles. 

There are many reasons for this comparatively small 
increase in the number of books sold; some of these rea- 
sons have to do with the kind of books published, their 
distribution, etc.; but one very important reason comes 
directly under the heading of advertising. 

As a whole our publishers have not seen the opportu- 
nity and the possibilities of building up a new book 
clientele. There are a certain number of people who 
regularly buy books, and to these people, as a rule, pub- 
lishers appeal exclusively. There are millions of people 
in the United States hungry for books, eager to be 
trained and shown how. ‘These statements are not 
merely a matter of guesswork. 

Years ago there existed, distributed among many now 
unknown publishers, a very large sale of sets of books 
on instalments. ‘These books were sold at most exag- 
gerated prices. [hey were never sold on their merits— 
that is they were never sold on the reading matter that 

305 


| lice is no doubt that the book buying public in 


306 Masters of Advertising Copy 


wasinthem. ‘They were sold on the idea that there were 
9,000,000 people who had already bought them and that 
volumes standing end on end would climb Mt. Everest 
and that volumes side by side would encircle the globe, 
or almost anything except the actual contents of the 
books. 

As a consequence this instalment book business wore 
itself out in a very few years. It was never sound. 
There were a great many failures among these pub- 
lishers and the book business was quiescent for a number 
of years. 

At that time it occurred to one of our leading pub- 
lishers that if books were sold at a fair price on instal- 
ments and if they were sold for their contents by means 
of advertising copy very carefully prepared, rather than 
for their bindings, a solid business could be built up. This 
idea was carried out successfully by the Review of Re- 
views, Harper &F Brothers, Scribner's and a number of 
other well-known publishers. And to-day after a num- 
ber of years, an honest business that is substantial has 
been built up, and-the names of some of our best Ameri- 
can writers, such as O. Henry, Mark Twain, Richard 
Harding Davis and some others, have been placed higher 
than they ever had been. 

It is important to notice that this sale is built almost 
exclusively on the idea that all books are sent on ap- 
proval; therefore you have to have a satisfied customer 
and the only way to have a satisfied customer is to tell 
in advance what he is actually going to find in the books. 
There is no use telling him that O. Henry is the greatest 
writer that ever lived if he does not care for O. Henry’s 
kind of book. If there had been any doubt in my mind 
about this it was very sharply dispelled by an experience 
of my own a few years ago. 

One of our publishers had among their writers one of 


Helen Woodward 307 


the most distinguished of American novelists. This 
writer appeals only to the very cultivated few. An at- 
tempt was made to sell the works of this writer in similar 
fashion to Mark Twain and O. Henry. ‘The orders 
came in heavily but the books came back from customers 
almost as quickly as they went out. People had bought 
expecting to find something as popular as the advertis- 
ing copy appeared to make it. Instead they found in the 
books a subtle and beautiful style for which they cared 
nothing. All this has a bearing on the advertising copy 
used for current new books. 

Our publishers, as a rule, have a feeling that if they 
tell the public that John Jones has written a new book, 
that the public ought to rush to grab that book. There 
is, no doubt, a certain limited public that enjoys the work 
of John Jones and buys it as soon as it appears; but there 
are vast numbers of people that would like John Jones if 
someone would just tell them about John Jones and what 
he writes. 

It is preposterous to think that in this country to-day 
there are only about 30,000 who buy the works of the 
three English novelists, who, with one exception, are per- 
haps the greatest living writers in the world. It appears 
to me certain that good advertising copy could make 
vastly more readers for these masters. 

To go back once more to the instalment book business. 
When we began, in this revival, to advertise O. Henry, 
we naturally picked out so-called literary magazines, but 
we have learned in the course of years that our big 
sale is not from these magazines. We have discovered 
dozens of media of which the publishers of new books 
know nothing at all. We should have to close shop on 
this instalment book business if we should stick to the 
usual recognized literary media. 

What does this mean? Simply that there are several 


308 Masters of Advertising Copy 


million people in this country ready to buy books if 
someone tells them about them in the right way. To 
this there comes at once an objection on the part of most 
publishers which could be put thus: “Suppose we publish 
a new book by James Smith. James Smith sold 30,000 
copies of his last book, therefore we can spend perhaps 
$2,000 on advertising his new book, altogether; other- 
wise we cannot get our money back.” 

There is no question that as a rule it would be im- 
possible to get any real money back on a single book. 
It is possible that James Smith is a writer who will never 
appeal to more than 30,000, but if the author has a 
popular appeal I will venture to say that it is quite pos- 
sible to increase that 30,000 to 100,000 or 250,000. 

To do this the publisher would naturally have to be 
certain that James Smith was going to stay with him 
as an author and not go to some other publisher; in other 
words, he would have systematically to advertise James 
Smith as though James Smith were a fine pair of gloves, 
with the idea of his building up a permanent demand for 
James Smith. 

One of the commonplaces of literary criticism is the 
wonder at the popularity of Harold Bell Wright. Yet 
there is no mystery here. It is simply a startling exam- 
ple of what can be done by systematic, organized adver- 
tising and publicity work. A great reputation has been 
built up for many by this method, and such similar 
sale could undoubtedly be built up for many another 
American and British author, if the publisher had the 
foresight to invest the time, money and thought, and 
use advertising copy which would produce a real under- 
standing of the author, and consequently desire for his 
books. 

In all my experiences in the advertising of other kinds 
of business I have never found any advertiser who ap- 


Helen Woodward 309 


proaches the sale of goods by advertising as the publisher 
does. Suppose we have a new soap to put on the 
market. Do you think for one moment that we would 
pick out simply two or three newspapers in New York, 
two in Chicago, one in Boston and one in Philadelphia, 
put two or three advertisements in each and sit back 
and say, ‘“‘Now let’s see how many pieces of soap we are 
going to sell? Suppose at the end of three weeks we 
found that we had sold 1,000 cakes of soap and per- 
haps in the course of the next year we sold two or three 
thousand more. We haven’t much margin. We made 
perhaps $500, so let’s spend $100 on a new kind of 
soap.” 

Of course this is a far-fetched case. The circum- 
stances are not the same as those in the book business, 
but there is some similarity. The publisher puts out a 
new book, and as I said above, he advertises in two or 
three newspapers in New York, perhaps one in Chicago, 
one in Boston and one in Philadelphia and sits back. 
Except for literary reviews this money is practically 
wasted. But don’t forget that these reviews are read 
only by people who are interested in reading books and 
are in the habit of buying books. 

The vast millions of people in this country who read 
newspapers or magazines, but never read a review, will 
buy books if they are told how. 

We have proved this on books sold on instalments. 
If you can sell an author like Robert Louis Stevenson in 
popular style, you can certainly sell a new thriller by a 
popular writer of to-day. 

The trouble with the publisher’s approach to the 
advertising problem is fundamental and persists through- 
out his approach on all publishing problems. He insists, 
as a rule, on advertising as though he were producing 
literature. And most books published to-day have no 


310 Masters of Advertising Copy 


relation to literature. There should be no attempt made 
to sell the average book to literary people. They should 
be sold for what they are—entertainment and a few 
pleasant evenings, a good story—a good cry or two 
and a good laugh or two. A large number of people 
would buy this kind of book who don’t want to buy 
George Moore or Edith Wharton. But such people 
must reach conviction and appreciation through advertis- 
ing which is done in a manner worthy of the task and 
its results. 

In other words, there is a possibility for the publisher 
to build up a huge clientele for at least some of his 
writers if he would approach his product as a manu- 
facturer would, and merchandise it and advertise in 
similar fashion. 

My suggestions, therefore, are three: First, that the 
publisher advertise books for what is in them rather 
than some literary measure of forty years ago; second, 
that publishers appeal to a new public; and third, that 
publishers invest in a non-literary author with the same 
foresight which a soap manufacturer might invest in 
soap. 


XX 
The Copy Writer's Work Bench 


JoHN Starr Hewitt. Born in Burlington, New Jersey. 
Educated in private schools of Burlington and Philadelphia. 
Editorial and literary work with J. B. Lippincott Company, 
1897-1907. In 1907 attracted to the advertising field by the 
copy writing genius of the late George L. Dyer and joined his 
organization in that year. Since 1911 Chief of Production for 


the George L. Dyer Company. A Director of the Company 
since 1912, and Secretary since 1923. 


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XX 
The Copy Writer's Work Bench 
By John Starr Hewitt 


HE more one sees of the difficulties of copy writing, 
the deeper grows the conviction that really great 
copy depends even more on seeing and feeling 

than it does on writing. 

The man who sees truly and feels deeply can hardly 
help writing sincerely. 

Even at that, his writing will always give him trouble 
enough. 

The truer and more ample the sight, the greater the 
difficulty of getting it a/l on paper. 

And to express fully a fine, deep feeling calls for a 
writing skill possessed in the highest degree by only a 
few in each generation. 

* * * * * * * 


Some of the greatest writing that is being published 
to-day—and also much of the worst—is being printed 
in the advertising pages. 

Probably the immature and the superficial are to be 
found in the other arts, also. 

It may be too much to expect that advertising, which 
in its modern sense is hardly more than twenty-five years 
old, should have already reached the serene standards 
of maturity. 

But it so happens that the copy writer owes a special 
obligation to his times. 

313 


314 Masters of Advertising Copy 


He has taken on himself voluntarily to give voice 
to the messages of commerce. 

This commercial responsibility is no light thing. 

Commerce is mature, substantial. It is the full- 
fledged expression of the peculiar spirit of our age. It 
is calling forth the highest creative genius of to-day. 

This mature, self-conscious commercial genius will not 
forever put up with being weakly interpreted or misin- 
terpreted in its advertising. 

So it behooves the copy writer to grow up, get his 
work-bench in order, and learn to practise his art as a 
mature and conscious craftsman. 

In every job that he undertakes is implied the promise 
to make a contribution to a commercial success. 

No other writer assumes the same responsibility. 
The only obligation of thc novelist, the poet, or the 
essayist is to interest a group of readers who are already 
predisposed to interest in the sort of thing he writes. 

But the advertising writer promises his client not only 
to interest the reader, but to stir him up to positive buy- 
ing action. 

* * > * * * * 

The copy writer who means sincerely to develop into 
the mature craftsman, may well stop here and take 
stock of where he stands now. 

Perhaps he has already produced a considerable vol- 
ume of acceptable copy. If he has any contact with the 
client, he has seen the results at first hand. On the 
surface of things, he might perhaps feel pretty well satis- 
fied with himself. 

But let him ask himself in all humility whether he owes 
his success to the merits of his work, or to the sug- 
gestibility of the American citizen. 

The alert eagerness of the American mind is one of 
the marvels of the human race. 


John Starr Hewitt S15 


An enormous mass of superficial advertising gets by, 
simply because this alert consuming mind meets it more 
than half-way, reading into it a rich human meaning that 
the copy writer never put into it. 

Let him take no comfort from the fact that the public 
is eager to buy, and so almost any kind of publicity may 
‘make sales.” 

This eager buying mind is not a crutch for a weak, 
superficial performance. It is a challenge to the deepest, 
truest work that is in him. 

His obligation—voluntarily assumed—is to express 
the full content of his client’s business. AJ] of it. 

Not merely the physical facts of the merchandise, 
but all its human associations and meanings. 

Not merely the human meanings of the merchandise, 
but the vision and ideals of the manufacturer. 

And not merely the vision and ideals of the manufac- 
turer, but his authority and leadership in his industry. 

The whole American public is his audience. 

All the hopes, and strivings, and ambitions of human 
nature are there for him to work with. 

To the writer who has real love for merchandise, there 
is open a richness of writing material that will last him 
his life long. 

In every industry, factory and technical process is con- 
tained a human drama waiting for the writer who can 
see it and give it authoritative voice. 

The ideals of the manufacturer are the truest thing 
in his life. He puts them into his merchandise; but it 
is up to the copy writer to express them for him in words. 

An opportunity for the copy writer if there ever was 
one—to make articulate the innermost dreams of a man’s 
life! A challenge to insight, sympathy, understanding, 
and a call for the highest technique of the craft of 
writing. 


316 Masters of Advertising Copy 


There are four essential tools for the copy writer: 


Sympathetic understanding of plain folks. 

Genuine appreciation for the human facts about 
merchandise. 

Sensitive feeling for what words mean to the 
other fellow. 

Sincere respect for a commercial ideal. 


The copy writer’s job is to understand both the manu- 
facturer and the public and to bring them together on the 
ground of mutual belief in each other. 

He has committed himself to express the rich human 
meaning of his client’s business in terms of the specific, 
concrete human life of the reader. 

He has no personal opinions whatever. His work is 
to understand the hopes, and likes, and ambitions of the 
Mothers and Fathers of this country. 

Only the writer, who can feel in his own being some- 
thing of the full, overbrimming content that a woman 
puts into such thoughts as ‘‘Home”’ and ‘“‘Baby,”’ will ever 
write great advertising copy. 

Then let him tag around the house after her as she 
does her chores. Let him get all the meaning she reads 
into “Ironing,” ‘‘Cooking,” ‘‘Clearing up.” 

Let him get a full insight into what the word ‘“‘Rent” 
means to the average man. What is this citizen thinking 
about and hoping for when he helps out in the kitchen 
after dinner—or plays with the children— or tinkers 
around with hammer or paint brush—or weeds his back- 
yard patch of string beans? 

What is it that makes so many men downright stingy 
in buying for themselves, but prodigal in spending for 
their families? 

The highest and truest advertising copy is always 
pitched to the specific here and now. 


John Starr Hewitt 617 


This sense of the here and now is one of the first 
things for the copy writer to acquire. 

Aimless blazing away in the advertising pages (and 
there is still plenty of it) has no excuse to-day. There 
is no room in the commercial world for slighted respon- 
sibility and opportunity thrown away. 

If any copy writer finds himself in doubt how to go 
about a professional job of writing, he need only study 
the able, professional copy being published. Any man 
who will, can find it. There is no mystery about it. Its 
principles and methods are plain to be seen. 


These principles are easily stated: 


1. Every piece of merchandise has its specific con- 
crete appeal. 

2. This appeal is organic to the nature of the 
merchandise in its relations to the human life of the 
consumer. 

3. What the consumer thinks and feels about it 
depends on the time, the place, and the state of the 
public mind about that kind of merchandise. 

4. Every kind of merchandise goes through the 
same three stages in the public consciousness : 

(a) A pioneer invention. A new and untried 
human relation. A few bold buyers take the 
plunge. 

(At this stage it is the business of the copy 
writer to sell the human meanings of the new 
invention. And more than that—to begin now 
to establish the authority of the pioneer manu- 
facturer. ) 

(b) Word gets around that there’s something 
init. Greatly increased public acceptance. Other 
manufacturers enter the field. Wide choice in 
styles, grade and price is offered the public. 

(Now the copy writer has to reckon with a new 
set of human reactions. ‘True, there is still a 


318 Masters of Advertising Copy 


large section of the public to be sold on the de- 
sirability of this kind of merchandise. But the 
pioneer manufacturer no longer has the whole 
burden of doing this. All the other manufac- 
turers are also doing it. But the big job now is 
to consolidate the authority of the pioneer manu- 
facturer as to style, price and money’s worth.) 

(c) Everybody now takes this kind of mer- 
chandise for granted. It has won its place in the 
life of the nation. ‘Thousands are buying it. 
Hundreds are manufacturing it. This is the 
stage of acute competition. 

(The responsibility of the copy writer now is to 
strengthen the competitive position of his client— 
not only with the consumer, but with the dealer. 
It calls for all his understanding of human nature 
—and all his ability to present the human mean- 
ings of style, price, money’s worth, and the au- 
thoritative leadership of the manufacturer. 
Everything he writes, even to the consumer, must 
strengthen his client’s position with the dealer. 
In this competitive stage, strong relations with 
the best dealers are of utmost importance. He 
is the man who passes the merchandise along to 
the consumer, and every manufacturer is compet- 
ing for his trade.) 


The above is but one example of the constant changes 
that are always taking place to affect the copy man’s ap- 
proach to his work. 

This particular change happens to be a standard trade 
situation. 

Other possible changes that he will have to look out 
for are shifts in public opinion—the most subtle of all the 
situations the copy writer is called on to meet. 

Such shifts of the consuming mind may have to do with 
style—with price or money’s worth—with balancing this 


John Starr Hewitt 319 


whim of taste against that demand caused by a funda- 
mental need. 

They may take their rise in any twist of human nature, 
and assume any one of a hundred forms. 

The man who cannot sense these shifts of public opin- 
ion, and base his copy on them, has not the makings of a 
great copy writer. 

But nearly everyone has at least a little native inward 
spark of such understanding. 

He may not even be aware of it now. But he must 
have it,—or he never would have been led to express 
himself through advertising. 

If he has the persistence to take this spark; nurse it; 
feed it with human contacts; fan it into the glowing flame 
of all-comprehending human sympathy, soon or late he 
will find himself a true copy writer—often when he has 
just about given up hope of ever writing any copy really 
worth while. 

* * * * * * * 

As to methods in copy writing, each man makes his 
own. 

One who should watch a master of copy writing at 
work for a month might come away wondering if he 
had any real method at all. 

In a mechanistic sense, he probably has not. 

For one campaign, a whole flood of captions may come 
rolling from his pen before he writes a word of the 
Lett 

At another time it may be the ‘“‘dealer paragraph’’— 
or a legend for an illustration—or the description of a 
piece of merchandise. 

But one thing will be found universally true: 

He always grasps the most significant thing first, and 
uses this to fix the key of his whole advertisement or 
campaign, 


320 Masters of Advertising Copy 


This ‘‘most significant thing” is the human relation of 
the merchandise to what folks are thinking about here 
and now. 

This is the reason why a really great advertisement is 
always so convincing. 

It starts with what is in the reader’s mind. 

It grows organically from this root. It has the in- 
evitable ring of solid and substantial truth. 

Copy written in this organic way takes on all the 
modes and forms of human thought and emotion. 

It may start with the simplest situations of a woman’s 
everyday housekeeping, but always sympathetic, and 
always interpreted in the terms of the merchandise. 


Things iron better when they are quite damp. 
So in the Hotpoint Iron, the point is made even 
hotter than the rest of the iron. . . . You get the 
maximum heat where the iron first touches the damp 
material. Your clothes come out fresh, crisp and 
delightfully smooth. 


Or it may call on all the resources of a poetic handling 
to present the scientific facts that give the Elgin Watch 
its dominant timekeeping authority. 


Elgin takes the time from the stars and puts it 
in your pocket. 

Out in Elgin, Illinois, there is a spick and span 
little building standing all by itself on a little knoll. 

This is the Elgin Time Observatory—for the 
sole purpose of recording the exact time from the 
passage of the stars across the meridian. 

The astronomer makes 110 star records in each 
night’s observations—and the time is correct within 
a few thousandths of a second. 

Now to put this precise time in your pocket. 


John Starr Hewitt 321 


This is the function of four master clocks. 

These clocks are checked and corrected day after 
day by the star observations. They transmit the 
exact time second by second to the Elgin Labora- 
tories and Timing Rooms. 

The Elgin Watch you put in your pocket or clasp 
on your wrist was checked hour after hour, day after 
day, through all the critical processes of adjusting 
and timing, against the star time observed by the 
astronomers in the spick and span little building 
standing all by itself on the little knoll. 


And in the United States Rubber advertisements, it 
takes three highly technical discoveries, throws them 
against the rich, colorful drama of a world-wide industry, 
and presents the whole in all its human relations to the 
user of rubber products. 


If the United States Rubber Company had not 
established its own Rubber Plantations 
Fifteen Years ago— 


This Company owns Rubber Plantations total- 
ing 110,000 acres in Sumatra and on the Malayan 
Peninsula. It has over 5,000,000 rubber trees, 
with almost limitless opportunity for increased pro- 
duction as more trees are planted. Furthermore, 
each year the trees now bearing yield larger and 
larger quantities of latex—the milky liquid that 
flows from the rubber tree when it is tapped. A 
sure and increasing source of rubber latex of the 
highest quality. 

Within the past few weeks, the United States 
Rubber Company announced to the users, merchants 
and manufacturers of Rubber Goods of all descrip- 
tions three new and basic developments— 


322 


Masters of Advertising Copy 


Sprayed Rubber 
Web Cord 
Flat-Band Method of Building a Cord Tire 


In the light of these advances, the forethought 
of this Company in establishing its own rubber plan- 
tations, and insuring its supply of rubber latex, seems 
almost prophetic. 

If this Company had not been growing its own 
rubber for years, working clear through from the 
latex to the finished articles of manufactured rubber, 
two of these discoveries—Sprayed Rubber and Web 
Cord, might never have been made at all. 


~The New Sprayed Rubber 


Instead of coagulating rubber out of the latex 
with smoke or chemicals—the only methods known 
heretofore—latex is sprayed as a snow-white mist 
into super-heated air. [he water is driven out of 
it—nothing else. Pure rubber alone remains... . 


The New Web Cord 


Web Cord also starts with the latex. 

The technicians of this Company discovered that 
pure rubber latex has a strong natural affinity for 
cotton cord. 

Here was the clue to something that cord tire 
makers have been hunting for years—how to im- 
pregnate cord tire fabric with pure rubber—to get 
away from using chemical solutions of rubber which 
injure cotton cord... . 


Tires without a Weak Spot 
The Flat-Band Method of building a Cord Tire 


does away with practically all the flexion resistance 
within the tire. . . . 


John Starr Hewitt 323 


Every cord in the tire is kept at the correct 
length, lies at the correct angle, and takes its pro- 
portionate part of the load... . 

* x * * * * * 


To the copy writer who thinks in literal terms, the 
human relations of such things as the Elgin Time Ob- 
servatory and the United States Rubber Plantations 
might seem somewhat obscure. 

If he feels this way about it, it is a sure sign that he 
does not understand how the American mind delights 
to thrill over the romance of merchandise. 

In spite of his seeming sophistication, the American 
citizen is naive, fresh, essentially childlike, full of gen- 
erous enthusiasms and capacity for wonderment. 

His everyday life is pretty dull. Get up—eat—go to 
work—eat—go to bed. 

But his mind is constantly reaching out beyond this 
routine. ‘This is one of the reasons why the American 
is such a great fiction reader—movie goer—talking ma- 
chine and radio fan. 

He compensates for the routine of to-day by the vision 
of what his life is to be to-morrow. It is the vision of 
getting ahead. 

Everything he buys comes as a partial fulfilment of this 
vision. 

A man will dream for months before he buys his first 
motor car. 

What he is dreaming about is not a mechanism of 
chassis and wheels and engine. 

It is himself, and his wife and children. ‘Their social 
standing, health, enjoyment, convenience. 

To him, what the manufacturer has achieved exists for 
his gratification. 

And in the manufacturer’s leadership he finds confirma- 


324 Masters of Advertising Copy 


tion of his own astuteness in recognizing the superiority 
of the manufacturer’s goods. 

So it is with everything else he buys. No one ever in 
his life bought a mere piece of merchandise—per se. 

What he buys is the satisfaction of a physical need or 
appetite, or the gratification of some dream about his 
life. 

It need not even be an important purchase. Every- 
thing he buys represents to him a conscious choice in 
molding his life to his vision of it. 

Even with such an everyday thing as a new kind of 
breakfast food, a woman will read a vision of her family 
taking a step forward—if the copy writer will give her 
half a chance. 

There is the expectation of new and delicious flavor— 
the pride in being among the first to discover the new and 
better thing,—and the emotional gratification of seeing 
her family like what she provides, and thriving on it. 

All small things, perhaps—but it is the ability to 
handle these intimate points of view sympathetically that 
tests the powers of the copy writer to the utmost. 

What he has to do Is to interpret these intimate human 
dreams in terms of his client’s merchandise. 

He will feed the dream with every element of fact 
and imagination. 

He will school himself in true and ample seeing, con- 
crete thinking, deep feeling. 

He will never lack for things to write about. His 
field is as broad and deep as human nature. 

x * x * * * * 

As this growth takes place within himself, he will find 
his writing style purifying itself with his thinking. Fewer 
adjectives. More nouns and verbs—the words that ex- 
press concrete fact and action. 

He is apt to find his vocabulary growing smaller— 


John Starr Hewitt s20 


sloughing off a lot of vague, general words that used to 
clutter up everything he wrote. 

What he has left are a few thousand vivid words that 
express the true universal thoughts and emotions of 
everyday life. Simple words, most of them—many of 
only one syllable. 

His writing takes on a new vocal quality. It is as 
satisfying to the ear as to the eye. 

This vocal quality is a thing to be worked for. It is 
not merely “worth” acquiring. It is vital. 

Until a piece of copy has this vocal quality it is not 
pulling its full load. It reaches the reader only through 
the eye. The highest, finest writing gets to the reader 
through the ear, also. 

This is not a writer’s trick, it is a basic human fact. 

Nearly everybody, when he reads, pronounces the 
words to himself. The sound of the words floats into 
the brain through the ear, while the shape of the words 
is entering through the eye. 

So the impression is doubled. 

When a piece of copy won’t “read right,” the chances 
are that it is full of long words. So the sounds get all 
jumbled up. 

It is the short, simple words that make easy reading 
copy. hey vocalize. Mostly these words are of the 
oldest heritage of the race. [hey are polished by long 
use until they slip easily from the tongue and snuggle 
themselves into the ear. 

They are apt to arrange themselves kindly in the 
sentence. 

They offer the widest range of vocal color. 

Soothing words—bustling words—and words that ring 
like a gong. 

Broad vowels—flat vowels—full-bodied, portly vowels 


326 Masters of Advertising Copy 


—and the high pitched sharp vowels that cut a sentence 
off like a knife. 

And the consonant sounds. ‘The soft “‘b’s’’ and ‘‘d’s,”’ 
ANC was HANncsnt So) and \r'S Vand ys ae ae Messin 
vigor of ‘‘s” (but one has to look out for too many “‘s’s” 
in a row—they may trip the reader’s tongue even in 
silent reading). And the shock of the “‘t’”? sound and 
the ‘‘k”’ sound at the end of a sentence. 

Fortunately, the writer who schools himself to see 
amply, think truly and feel deeply, will find himself pick- 
ing the right word by instinct. 

This is a faculty that grows by use. 

His words will be chosen not only for what they mean, 
but for their associations. 

His writing will deliver the full content of the thought 
and emotion. 

He finds himself with a new sense of intimate contact 
with the inner life of the reader. 

He becomes conscious of true power in expressing the 
ideals and authority of his clients. 

Instead of writing long academic words about the little 
details of merchandise, he is expressing the great human 
things of merchandise in short simple words. 

That is, he is writing great copy—at last. 


XXII 
The Psychology of the Printed Word 


ARTHUR Ho Mes. College pres.; b. Cincinnati, May 5, 
1872. Educated at Bethany (W. Va.) Coll., 1894-5; B.A., 
Hiram (O.) Coll., 1899; A.M., U. of Pa., 1903; Ph.D., 1908. 
Ordained Disciples of Christ, 1899; pastor 6th Ch., Phila., 
1899-04; Memorial Ch., Ann Arbor, Mich., 1904-5; religious 
and ednl. dir. Pa. R. R. Dept. Y. M. C. A., Philadelphia, 
1905-8; instr. psychology, 1908-9; asst. prof., 1909-12; asst. dir. 
Psycho-Clinic, 1908-12, U. of Pa.; dean gen. faculty Pa. State 
Coll., Sept. 1912-18; pres. Drake U., Des Moines, Ia., 1918-22. 
Mem. Am. Psychol. Assn., Am. Genetic Assn., Sigba Xi, Phi 
Kappa Phi, Theta X. Author: Decay of Rationalism, 1909; 
The Conservation of the Child, 1902; Principles of Character 
Making, 1913; Backward Children, 1915. Joint Author: 
When to Send for the Doctor, 1913. 


“ 


XXI 
The Psychology of the Printed Word 
By A. Holmes, A.M., Ph.D. 


HATEVER by-products, spiritual or material, 
advertising may distribute to its makers and 
buyers, its prime purpose, and sole and solitary 

reason for being, is to secure buyers for the products 
advertised. This it may do by direct appeal to buy; or 
by indirect methods preparing the public or the indi- 
vidual mind by education, or otherwise, eventually to 
buy. Its end and purpose is action—specific and directed 
action. It appeals for orders; it, like all salesmanship, 
wants the name on the dotted line. 

In this respect advertising is entirely in harmony with 
man’s nature. For the end of man, as far as psychol- 
ogists and philosophers can make out, is action. He is 
not primarily, but only secondarily, a thinking animal. 
His mind is not a mere reservoir for hoarded knowledge. 
If he is an encyclopedia, he is a walking encyclopedia, and 
the information he has should tell where to go and how 
to get there. That is the function of the printed word 
everywhere. Its power lies in its ability to inspire and 
direct—to tell where to go and how to get there, what 
to do and how to do it. 

To attribute such power to cold type seems absurd. 
And it is. The power does not lie in the lines of ink 
or paint spread on a surface. It lies in the power of 
those words to make their appeal to human nature. To 

329 


330 Masters of Advertising Copy 


exercise any power whatever, they must be attended to, 
read, and acted upon. Nobody puts up a sign warning 
animals off the premises, and a campaign of advertising 
amongst illiterate human beings would be a sad waste 
of money. The printed word must have power to at- 
tract attention, power to hold attention long enough to 
tell its story, power to move the prospective customer, 
power to direct the customer. These powers it must 
have mediately or immediately; or else the advertiser’s 
money is wasted. 

Such powers rest upon the nature of man. He reacts 
to any stimulation whatever. “Impressions produce ex- 
pressions’ is the fundamental law of man’s psychic 
nature. He can no more help that than a nervous 
woman can help jumping when a window falls, or the 
mouth of a tramp help watering when he smells frying 
chicken, or a healthy baby help kicking and grabbing. 
Man must act, inside or out; spasmodically and hap- 
hazardly as in reflexes; purposively without knowing 
why, as in blind instincts, and purposively with full knowl- 
edge of what he is trying to accomplish, as in voluntary, 
rational or ideational actions. All of these varieties of 
actions—reflex, instinctive and purposeful—are subject 
to arousal by advertisement. None of them should be 
left out of consideration by the framer of productive 
appeals. How each one operates we will see in the next 
few lines. 

First, let us take the simplest form of human action, 
the reflex. It is a simple, unconscious action aroused 
by some object or idea or feeling. The winking of the 
eye is a good example. The ordinary action is due to 
an impression of dryness and is performed unconsciously. 
In the same manner is much of our seeing done. A mil- 
lion objects affront the eye, and how many of them make 
any impression on our minds? Nobody knows for cer- 


— 


A. Holmes 331 


tain. But it is certainly true that many which seem to - 
make no conscious impression, do, however, make an 
unconscious impression. Later on, those unconscious 
impressions may arise and dominate an action. Sidis and 
Goodhart in their book on Multiple Personality give 
most interesting instances of such cases. For example, 
consider the case of a patient who could not feel pain in, 
say, his hand. If the hand was pricked several times 
with a pin, he felt nothing. But upon being asked to 
guess the number of times he was pricked, he did so and 
guessed right every time. A most amusing story is told 
of an American traveler who, in a small town in France, 
saw suddenly a street-scene entirely familiar to him. He 
was astounded. Never before by any possibility had his 
eyes rested upon that actual scene. He had never been 
in France before; never out of America; hardly out of 
his native city. Yet there stood a perfectly familiar 
street before his eyes. The puzzle weighed upon his 
mind till, after returning home and getting back to his 
own familiar room, he stood wiping his hands before his 
wash-stand, when his eye happened to fall upon a picture 
on the wall above the basin, and there he beheld the pic- 
tured scene he thought he saw for the first time in France. 
He had looked with unconscious eye upon that picture 
thousands of times. Something had remained from 
each look, something obscure, dim, unknown, but some- 
thing that, upon proper stimulation by a more energetic 
demand upon attention, could arouse in him a sure sense 
of familiarity. ow many millions of times is such an 
experience repeated by the readers of street-car adver- 
tisements? How many riders can recall what they have 
read on any morning trip to work? Yet what an infinite 
amount of influence have those signs exerted al! unknow- 
ingly upon every one who cast even a casual glance at 
them? If nothing else has been done, the first small step 


332 Masters of Advertising Copy 


toward making the goods advertised ‘‘old and reliable” 
has been taken in the reader’s mind by making him, 
all unconscious to himself, familiar with those goods. 

But there is much more in even the reflex action of 
men. At the very beginning, for example, of any sales- 
man’s work, mass- or individual-salesman, writer or 
talker, the attention of the customer must be attracted. 
That may be an entirely reflex matter. No baby can 
resist following with his eyes a light moving in a dark 
room. Hardly any grown person, off his guard, can 
help doing the same thing. Any moving object caught 
out of the corner of the eye, jerks the eye around for 
one full look at that thing. All moving signs depend 
upon that inborn reflex to attract attention. 

But further, if the message of the sign is to be con- 
sciously read, the attention must linger a moment. Again 
laws of reflexes come in to hold the observer’s eye or 
repel it. Movement will attract the eye, but not hold it. 
The eye muscles weary too quickly. Therefore, no read- 
ing matter ought to move. It ought to stand still, and 
stand still long enough to be leisurely read. That addi- 
tional attention must be secured and can be secured in 
many ways. 

The most usual way is to secure it by color. Here 
again certain reflexes play their part. For, in looking 
at anything on earth, even by the merest glance, always 
two results are obtained by the beholder: First, he secures 
a sensation—a color, shape, size, something called a 
sensation; then, secondly, he also has aroused in him a 
feeling either agreeable or disagreeable. If it is dis- 
agreeable he removes his eye from the object as quickly 
as he can, and goes in search of something agreeable. 
If it is agreeable he lingers. This law holds for every 
look a man or woman ever gives to anything. Some- 
times the intensity of the feeling is so keen that the looker 


A. Holmes 333 


is clearly conscious of it. The charm of some objects 
is irresistible, as the young man understood who meas- 
ured his girl’s good looks by asserting that when she came 
into a street-car every bit of the advertising became a 
dead loss. Sometimes things are repellent, as the execu- 
tive understood who wanted a tvnist not too difficult to 
look at. 

Colors vary in their attracting and holding power. 
White, red and yellow attract but do not hold. The 
causes are many, but the most fundamental reason for 
this is the effect such colors have upon the eye. Each 
eye is furnished with certain cells which are affected by 
certain colors. Whenever any one looks at anything 
these cells are worn out, just as a muscle is when it is 
used. If it is worn out faster than it is built up by the 
nutritive processes of the body, then a feeling of disagree- 
ableness, of boredom, of weariness, and finally of pain, 
comes on. White, red and yellow have this power. 
They tear down the eye-cells faster than the eye-cells 
build up. Hence, nobody wishes to dwell long on any 
spaces covered by these colors. 

However, because of its long associations with man’s 
tragic experiences, red has a wonderful power to attract 
the eye. Red stands for danger because it is associated 
with blood, with fire, with burning suns and scorched 
waste-places of the earth. Consequently it may be used 
judiciously to attract the eye, but no skilled sign-writer 
or artist will ask the eye of any one he is trying to please, 
to dwell long upon its glaring and disturbing power. 

On the other hand, since man’s eye has been built up 
in the rest periods of sleep in the dark, since it awakes 
under the blue sky and is surrounded by the green ver- 
dure, these colors ease the eye and give to the spectator 
a feeling of quiet, serene and calm pleasure. For his 
eye-cells are now building up as fast or faster than they 


334 Masters of Advertising Copy 


are wearing out. ‘Therefore, words printed in blue let- 
ters on blue backgrounds have been long ago recom- 
mended by German scientists for children’s school books. 
All skilled artists understand the handling of colors to 
produce effects, but not all of them understand that 
human nature and that human physiology which underlie 
their practically gained knowledge. Much more lies be- 
hind these simple statements about reflexes, but enough 
has been said to show that all the time, each and every 
instant, the power of the printed word in color depends 
much upon its suitability to the fundamental constitution 
of man’s nature. 

When we consider instinctive actions we must not for 
a moment forget that they are complex processes having 
both an inward and an outward aspect. Instinctive 
action is blind action. The agent does something and 
does not know why he does it. That is the part of in- 
stinct that usually attracts the most attention. But in- 
side the actor there is a world of feeling. He does what 
he does because he feels like it. That is the immediate 
inner instigator of his act. But more, he feels like it 
because there has appeared before him some object that. 
arouses the feeling, or the object suggests some idea that 
arouses the feeling. To see the object he must pay atten- 
tion to it. That attention itself is the result of instinct. 
Any advertiser can see from Professor William Mc- 
Dougall’s definition of an instinct, in his Social Psychol- 
ogy, the vast practical importance these inborn traits in 
man possess for the advertiser’s art. He can see that 
the ordinary man is fashioned almost fatally to become a 
mark for his skill. ‘We may then define an instinct,” 
says the great psychologist, McDougall, “‘as an inherited 
or innate psycho- physical disposition which determines its 
possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to, objects of 
a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of 


A. Holmes 335 


a particular quality upon perceiving such an object, and 
to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or, at least, 
to experience an impulse to such action.” 

Here, born in man is all the explosive mine laid ready 
for the advertiser’s match. Notice, instincts are born in 
aman. No advertiser needs to create interest. Such an 
attempt is not only futile but utterly needless. Interests 
are already there, a whole reservoir full, waiting to be 
tapped and drained off to the commodity for sale. The 
advertiser is merely building the conduit for bringing that 
huge hoard of inborn interest to his own product. It 
is a disposition, too. The customer is already disposed 
in certain directions; disposed to read, disposed to buy. 
And he is “determined” to perceive. It is impossible to 
keep the crowd back, hopeless to prevent them from look- 
ing at advertisements. And equally they will pay atten- 
jion. Why sweat and labor and be discouraged about 
securing attention? ‘They wil] pay attention. Likewise, 
they will feel an emotional excitement. That is putting 
it strong, but this is a staid Harvard professor who is 
writing, and he knows his field. The action follows sure 
and soon; or, if the onlooker is in a street car, and cans 
not act immediately, he experiences “at least an impulse 
to act.’ What more can any advertiser ask? All the 
materials for a sale are before him in the form of in- 
stincts, inborn and innate, in his prospective customers. 
They form a veritable gold-mine waiting his pick and 
shovel, or, more literally, the point of his trenchant pen 
to prick them into active life. 

Here, of course, enters the advertiser’s art. Notice 
that all this internal commotion leading to action is 
aroused only on the presentation of “objects of a certain 
class.’ Aye, there’sthe rub! Objects of a certain class! 
Some advertisements fail utterly in entrance to that aris- 
tocratic class. Some enter as if to the manner born. 


336 Masters of Advertising Copy 


What is the difference? Careful analysis of the two 
kinds of advertisements, I believe, will show that one was 
written with no consciousness of this huge force, instinct, 
_in human affairs; or else, did not make the proper appeal 
and so had no power; while, on the other hand, the suc- 
cessful advertisement knocked at the door of the reader’s 
mind with the Chesterfieldian instincts of a born gentle- 
man and found ready and eager entrance. No lady 
could refuse its advances; no gentleman could rebuff its 
insinuating address. It did this because it appealed 
properly to instincts. 

Make no mistake. Man is not ultimately a rational | 
animal. His inborn desires determine what he wants; 
his reason tells him how to get it. But the innate ten- 
dency is the final arbiter. ‘The human mind,” says Mc- 
Dougall in the same volume, “‘has certain innate tenden- 
cies which are the essential springs or motive powers of 
all thought and action, whether individual or collective.” 
Instincts move men to think and to act. 

Now for a moment let us look at some of the applica- 
tions of this knowledge of instincts to the art of invest- 
ing the written word with irresistible fascination. We 
have seen above a few suggestions about color and other 
attributes, and there are many more in the same line. 
Skill and common sense will discover them. Right now 
our problem is a little more complex, just as the instincts, 
as we have shown, are more complex than the reflexes. 
For, in the first place, there are many instincts, as Pro- 
fessor James pointed out in his Principles of Psychology. 
They are hard to classify, as many scientists have dis- 
covered who have attempted it. ‘They combat each 
other at times. Some of them play large parts in human 
lives, while others appear on the stage only occasionally 
and then for minor parts only. Those which are most 
permanent are concerned with the maintenance of life in 


A. Holmes shir 


the individual. Self-preservation is the first law of 
nature. Food preserves life; so hunger has been counted 
the most fundamental of all instincts. 

So absolute is the ruling power of food-getting that 
were it not for competition in selling food, no advertise- 
ment for it would ever be needed. So the art of the 
ad writer is not satisfied by merely announcing food-sales, 
but in dressing up the appeal to human appetite for food 
in such luscious, delicious and fascinating furnishings that 
the appeal to man’s primary instinct is irresistible for 
that particular food. Nowhere does the art of the ad- 
vertising fraternity exhibit itself in such glowing colors 
and with such a fine sense of appeal. 

Next to the self-preservation instinct is the reproduc- 
tive instinct with all its varied, complex, baffling and in- 
tricate direct and indirect appeals to sex. Such a world 
of feeling is impossible to treat in a scientific treatise, 
much less in a paragraph. For the advertiser the sex- 
interest, with all its consequences of dress, ornaments, 
homes, schools, churches, institutions, laws, customs, 
habits, and with all the complexity of other instincts fol- 
lowing in its train, related and interrelated with it, fur- 
nishes nearly his whole quiver of word-empowering 
shafts. Possibly it is an overworked appeal. Certainly 
it is too often misused. Always it is as dangerous to use 
it as to neglect it. 

One or two concrete illustrations will enlighten more 
than many words of dissertation. Sometimes the sex- 
appeal is lugged into the advertisement by the neck and 
heels and produces in the reader a reaction worse for 
the expenditure of so much extra money. For instance, 
the observer’s eye is suddenly assaulted with a dusky 
female taking up nearly the whole foreground of expen- 
sive space on a sign-board. It is hinted, by the usual 
artificial and dead-in-the-wood palm-trees, that she is 


338 Masters of Advertising Copy 


located somewhere in the tropics. [he lapping of green 
waves in the distance leads one to suspect that the scene 
is laid on an island. But these are entirely minor im- 
pressions. ‘The major attention is drawn to this husky, 
mahogany, white-toothed, strong-limbed, female figure 
in the foreground. Now, what in all the possible realm 
of salable products do you think such a figure advertises? 
It might be anything. As a matter of fact, such an ad- 
vertisement is common almost to the point of nausea. It 
misses its whole point by its commonness. It illustrates 
good money thrown away because its appeal has no pith 
or point. As a matter of fact, one such advertisement 
used the figure to sell an ordinary edible. 

Note the mishandling of human nature in such an at- 
tempt. First, attention is supposed to be attracted by 
an appeal to one instinct—and a powerful one. ‘The 
method of doing that may or may not have been tasteful, 
pitched on a low plane or a high plane, well or illy done. 
For the moment we are not considering these items. We 
are looking at such an appeal from the cold, hard view- 
point of dollars and cents. ‘The appeal was made to 
customers to buy something. ‘[hat something, in the 
case just mentioned, was a delicate morsel, supposed to 
be good to eat. Here was a scantily clad girl dragged 
in by the hair and heels to arouse one instinctive interest, 
in order to sell an article that appealed to an entirely 
different instinct. Why not leave out the girl and appeal 
at once to the hunger-instinct? ‘Chat would save money 
and make more sales. 

But let us take even a more concrete case. Suppose 
George, riding home at night, is idly going over the 
street-car signs. One catches his eye. Again it is the 
over-done appeal to sex in an under-done state of habili- 
ments—a vaudeville girl this time, or circus girl, or 
dancer, or any girl whose vocation might lend a weak 


A. Holmes 339 


excuse for thus exposing her, scantily clad, to the drafts 
in a public conveyance. George’s eye idly roaming about 
stops with her; exploits the picture; has some of his in- 
terest aroused, and quite naturally, by the laws of asso- 
ciation, drifts over to the reality of the picture and rests 
finally upon the idea of going that night to see a good 
show. That idea tickles him so much that he goes home, 
gets dressed, takes his best girl to a show and lavishes 
upon the evening five times as much money as the cost 
of the article advertised. 

What was that article? Oh, we will say a pair of 
suspenders. Why the incongruity of the young lady? 
Obviously she needed no suspenders for supporting her 
slight investiture. She was thrust in to attract attention, 
and, unfortunately, did it. So the money spent for that 
printed word was worse than wasted. It not only failed 
to sell suspenders, but it did sell something else. It 
not only ruined a suspender sale, but it used up the pro- 
spective customer’s money on another enterprise. Such 
advertising is business suicide. Upon this side of handling 
the instinctive appeals I have dwelt for some time, for 
such appeals furnish such temptations to their use and 
so often end in misuse. Let us now turn to more con- 
structive uses of them. 

One of the best uses to which inborn instinct can be 
put is in building up sales sentiment. A sentiment is a 
complex construction built up in people out of their in- 
herited feelings, impulses and emotions by environment 
and education. ‘The education is not book-learning 
alone, but includes all those factors which bring ideas 
into mind. A sentiment is then a large affair. Its base 
is inborn instinct, and it rises like a pyramid in conscious- 
ness, to an idea at the apex. It is all knit together by 
time and experience. ‘Therefore, it is one of the stable 
and durable structures in each human being. It appears 


340 Masters of Advertising Copy 


in the forms of love for any person, or love for country, 
or the sentiment of religion. It is always directed toward 
an object, a person, or an idea. In general, all senti- 
ments can be divided into those of love or of hate, taken 
in their broadest sense. Such a classification reveals 
immediately how challengingly important they are to the 
man who sells by the printed word. 

For this reason a man will do as he thinks. ‘That is, 
an idea which dominates in a man’s mind will have its 
way. It will initiate and direct action. It is unlike a 
reflex which explodes in disordered action, and unlike 
instinctive action, which goes toward a goal without see- 
ing it. Ideational action knows just where it is going. 
It is rational, reasonable, justifiable, sensible. In short, 
all states of mind lead directly to action. ‘Some states 
of mind,” says William James in his Principles of Psy- 
chology, ‘“‘have it more than others. Feelings of pleas- 
ure and pain have it, and perceptions and imaginations 
of matters of fact ‘have it... . [tis the essence of all 
consciousness.’’ We all know pain has power to move a 
man—the school-boy who sets a pin in a teacher’s chair 
takes advantage of that law of nature ;—but it may have 
escaped the attention of men that ideas, as well as other 
parts of consciousness, also have that power vested in 
them. 

The reason why that fact escapes attention is because 
of the numerous and the various ideas which a man may 
have in his mind at the same time, or close following 
one another. He thinks of buying; then he thinks of the 
cost; and the two ideas work against one another. He 
thinks of buying and thinks of the price, and his stingi- 
ness—a feeling—may hold back his hand from putting 
his name on the dotted line. He thinks of buying for 
the sake of his wife and children, whom he loves, and 
the love supports and bulwarks the idea “Buy!” But 


A. Holmes 341 


immediately he feels fear of the future, fear of sickness, 
of losing his job, or some unexpected calamity, and that 
fear opposes both love and the idea ‘Buy!’ What he 
will eventually do, will be the resultant action from all 
the forces working upon him, forces immediately belong- 
ing to feelings, instincts, perceptions, ideas, all of them 
urging, pushing, hauling this way and that way, one 
against the other, or some against the others, like 
cliques and factions in political circles, milling around 
like undecided and startled cattle, knowing not which 
way to go, until One Supreme Idea takes possession of 
the mobs of feelings and ideas, and tells the whole mass 
where to go; as, on that terrible day in France, when 
the seething mob, swaying and swirling, suddenly took 
direction and purpose from the cry “On to the Bastile!” 
Such a mob, swayed by a purpose, is the picture of what 
we have called a sentiment in the mind of a buyer. In- 
stincts, feelings, emotions, all suddenly organize them- 
selves behind an idea and give to that idea, besides its 
own mighty impulsive force and its supreme skill to 
direct, the irresistible momentum of their own innate 
power to action. Such is the psychology of a sales- 
sentiment. 

Sentiment may be for a thing or against a thing. It 
is not altogether feeling. But one of its important in- 
gredients is feeling. Hence, it is most important for 
the advertiser to set his material appeal to the eye in 
the proper surroundings to arouse agreeable feelings. 
This matter we have treated above. Next, sentiment 
also includes, as part of its complex constitution, instincts 
as fundamental constituents. Therefore, it behooves 
the wide-awake advertiser to know human instincts. This 
also we have touched upon above. Finally, he must 
know how to organize these around the sole and single 
idea in which he is interested: ‘Buy my goods!” 


342 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Again a concrete illustration may be of help to clarify 
the matter. Suppose a real estate man wishes to sell 
a house in a suburb. He puts out a great sign-board. 
On it he paints a facsimile of the house itself, just as 
it stands—alone, empty, windows dark, with no human 
near it. Now what would be the first reaction of a 
beholder of that sign? A bad one. Instantly a number 
of feelings would well up. “Lonesome! Gloomy! 
Ghostly! I’d hate to live there!) A nervous woman 
might even shudder. All of this welter of ideas, feel- 
ings, instincts and emotions, is the sentiment that would 
be aroused by such a picture. Out of its ‘Don’t buy 
that!’ would come the controlling idea with startling 
distinctiveness and irresistible sales-opposition. 

Now, why? Any one with common sense knows much 
of the reason. Possibly he does not see all of it. 
Therefore, it may be that in that part which the common- 
sense man does not see, lies the success of the skilled 
salesman of real estate. That part is probably the in- 
stinct of gregariousness. People live in flocks, in droves, 
in families, tribes, nations. This is an inborn desire. 
Its opposite feeling is “lonesomeness,” one of the most 
powerful emotions to which men are subject. So, first 
of all, the picture of the house must be made to overcome 
lonesomeness. It must look “homey” at least. Light 
must stream from the windows, suggesting that the folks 
are in. 

A glimpse through a window at the well-known fire- 
side, under the evening lamp, etc., etc., etc., with all the 
skill the real estate man knows so well how to exercise, 
must forestall any feeling contrary to the gregarious in- 
stinct in people. A suggestion of another house by 
means of a paved street, or the gable of another house, 
helps the matter. 

Then, too, advantage may be taken of another factor 


A. Holmes 343 


due to sentiment. The sale-sentiment for this particular 
domicile may be placed within the larger sentiment al- 
ready developed in favor of suburban residence. People 
who live in the suburbs usually have children. Their 
sentiment for their children can be appealed to. 
‘Healthy and happy children” is a sentiment to which 
an appeal may be made by the words themselves. A 
mere mention of such words makes a genuine human feel 
good. “Schoolhouse within a block. No  street-car 
crossings between.’ Again there is the appeal to senti- 
ments :—love for the children; parental fears for the 
children. ‘“Thirty minutes’ ride from the business section 
of city.”’ This is an appeal to the sentiment for father. 
‘Shopping district within easy reach” —for mother. All 
of this illustrates concretely the fact that an idea “Buy 
this house!” can be vitalized by having switched into its 
being the current of sentiments already in existence. 

In our emphasis upon sentiment, which suggests to the 
reader the thought of feeling, we may have obscured the 
thought of ideational or volitional action. We must not 
forget the supreme part which an idea plays in the 
construction of a sentiment. The idea stands at the 
apex. It directs the action aroused by the instincts, the 
perceptions of objects and the emotions. Its immediate 
duty in the art of securing a sale by means of the printed 
word is to send the reader to some particular place to 
buy some particular article. Usually this idea, “Buy 
this!”’, is conveyed through the words on the sign or in 
the advertisement. The rest of the material is put there 
for the purpose of attracting and holding attention long 
enough to secure the reading of the rest of the message. 
That reading depends upon attention. The attention 
must not only be attracted in the first place, but also 
held. 


Will the crowd give attention? Here we come to 


344 Masters of Advertising Copy 


that bugbear—for people unacquainted with psychology 
—called the ‘Will. It assumes that men have the 
power to say “Yes” or “No” to an advertisement. The 
assumption is only partly correct. A man has power to 
decide in the first stage of the game, not in the last. The 
game is not in the arrangement of the advertisement, nor 
its matter, nor its style alone. The game is to be found 
in the play of those forces upon the man’s nature. If 
the advertisement does not attract him, he can say 
“No.” If it attracts him, and he does not pay attention 
to it long enough to break away from his usual line of 
thought, then he can say “NO.” But if the printed 
word can seize his attention, hold him chained, drive 
from his mind all other thoughts except the one “Buy 
this!”, standing at the head of an organized sentiment 
from which every opposing idea, perception, feeling, in- 
stinct and disposition have been driven out or smothered 
to death, then HE CANNOT SAY “NO!” His will is 
dead. ‘The only place where his will can come into play, 
according to William James, is in paying attention. If 
he pays attention, if he pays attention long enough, the 
outcome is as fatal as standing still long enough under 
a falling brick. 

Many are the illustrations that might be given of this 
power of ideas to decide and to direct action. It is 
shown in all its luminosity in hypnotism. There ideas 
rule. ‘That can be seen from the process of hypnotizing 
a person. He simply concentrates his attention upon 
some attractive object, say, an electric light bulb, or a 
revolving mirror. He forgets everything else. Then 
he forgets what he is looking at, or falls into a kind of 
sleep. While in that sleep the operator suggests to him 
some idea. Since that idea is the only one he has in 
mind, he does according to the direction of the idea. 
That is the process. In it there is no new law, as 


A. Holmes 345 


Bramwell in his Hypnotism well says. The ordinary 
laws of every day life are in force. Only the situation 
in which they work has been simplified; extraneous fac- 
tors have been eliminated, and the whole matter reduced 
to a simple situation which thus exposes to view the work- 
ing of a power which operates every moment of our con- 
scious life. The law expressed by William James says 
that the action represented in mind by an idea will im- 
mediately follow upon that idea unless the action is 
stopped—not by physical force, or an act of the will— 
but by another idea. Popularly stated, what a man 
thinks that he will do. This is the foundation of the 
advertising business. Were it not for that law adver- 
tising would be non est. 

The whole end and purpose, then, of an advertisement 
is to lodge an idea in the mind of the beholder and make 
him pay attention to that one idea until all opposing 
thoughts and feelings are eliminated from his mind; or, 
at least, until all the opposing ideas with all their oppos- 
ing hosts of supporting feelings are overcome. We have 
pictured the situation under the figure of a pyramid, 
illustrating a sentiment, with the idea at the apex; or, 
as the mob advancing upon the Bastile. We have seen 
the part which reflex actions, and simple feelings of 
agreeableness and disagreeableness, have in that senti- 
ment; what huge and important part instincts play in it; 
and finally how the idea caps the climax of the pyramid 
of sentiment and directs the person in his action. The 
power of the printed word thus lies in its ability to take 
advantage of human nature constructed as it is; to make 
its appeal to the various factors going to make up action, 
and to transform that power into sales. In general it 
may be summed up as the power to make sales-sentiment 
in general; and in particular, it is the power to make 
sales-sentiment for the particular commodity advertised. 


im? 


XXII 


Simplicity in Advertising Copy 


H. M. Bourne started in the. Copy Department of 
N. W. Ayer & Son, under his old chief, J. J. Geisinger. Was 
Advertising Manager of Buffalo Specialty Company, Copy 
Director of Erwin & Wasey Co., Chicago, and more latterly, 
Copy and Art Director of Gardner & Wells Company, Inc., 
New York. Now Advertising Manager of H. J. Heinz Com- 
pany, Pittsburgh, Penna. 


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XXII 
Simplicity in Advertising Copy 
By Humphrey M. Bourne 


IMPLICITY in advertising has most to do with the 
S printed message—the copy,—the last word in the 
advertising plan. If it fails, all fails. 

So please let me open with the advertising man’s 
prayer: 

“O Lord, make me short on words and long on ideas.” 

Elbert Hubbard used to say, ‘‘The copy’s the thing.” 
However fine the product, clever the merchandising plan, 
shrewd the advertising committee, well selected the 
media, if the copy doesn’t measure up, then the rest 
tumbles, like a row of dominoes when the end piece 
falls. 

It is so easy to discuss abstractly advertising without 
having due cognizance of advertising policies. The 
thing to be sold may be one of many: good will, confi- 
dence, service, the institution, or a definite article at a 
definite price. 

Yet whatever it is, that thing, so far as the advertise- 
ment is concerned, is the product, and the copy should set 
out to sell it. 

And that calls for the finest kind of simplicity—the 
straightest line between the writer’s selling thought and 
the reader’s buying interest. | 

It must picture it well, tell it simply, and make them 
want it. 

349 


350 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Good advertising isn’t hard because it has to be hard, 
but because it must be simple. 

No advertisement can serve five masters. It must de- 
cide quickly to sell one of five things: 


The artist 

The writer 

The engraver 

The typographer 
The thing advertised. 


Take your choice. 

If it is a work of art, and nothing else, it isn’t a good 
advertisement. 

If the selling message is lost in admiration for the 
writer’s style, it isn’t a good advertisement. 

If some bizarre engraving effect comes between the 
eye and the message, it isn’t a good advertisement. 

If the typographical arrangement tries to outshout 
the message, it isn’t a good advertisement. 

But if the advertisement starts out to sell something 
and keeps on selling it while being helped by the other 
four factors, by reason of their very unobtrusiveness— 
then you have an advertisement, for before all else an ad- 
vertisement is intended to sell what it advertises, and not 
the mechanical elements that comprise it. 

That, you will say, is obvious, elemental, the taken- 
for-granted rule of advertising. 

True—but the obvious truth is too often disregarded. 
The simplest rules which gave advertising being are 
too often threatened by the smothering influence of’ 
abstract ideas, writer’s ego, and a far-fetched style which 
would never stand the across-the-counter selling test. 

Advertising isn’t something to play with. It is some- 
thing to work with, and to work hard with. We can 
wander as we may from the path of simple straight-from- 


Humphrey M. Bourne 351 


the-shoulder copy, but the longer we have to do with 
advertising the more certain do we find ourselves return- 
ing to time-tried simple effectiveness just as we find our- 
selves returning to the simple prayers we learned at 
mother’s knee. | 

While it is true that people, especially the people of 
America, have become advertisingly educated, it is just 
as true that for that very reason they must be appealed 
to with reason, simply expressed. 

A fine picture, a ‘“‘catchy’” headline, rare style and 
novel type arrangement may make them exclaim, ‘‘That’s 
a clever ad,” without their being able to recall the name 
of the product after turning the page. 

If many a full page advertisement were written with 
the same painstaking care, and lack of unnecessary, fan- 
ciful trimming, as the sixty-line mail-order advertisement 
which must go out into the cold world and bring back 
its cost many times over, there would be far fewer 
‘clever’ ads and many more sales. 

Heaven preserve us from the “clever” ad. 

The first thing, then—does it pass the page-turning 
test ? 

We're a quick thinking, quick eating, quick talking, 
quick reading nation. When we go to the movies we 
don’t want anything to come between us and our picture, 
any more than we want static in our WEAF. 

We see so much advertising everywhere that we're 
not hunting it with a microscope. 

If we can’t take it in at an eyeful, then we don’t take 
it in. 

So, it should first pass the page-turning test. Re- 
member, the advertisement is fighting for attention 
among a thousand others—and, oh, how thick the issues 
are getting! 

The picture should tell the story. 


S52 Masters of Advertising Copy 


The headline should dramatize it. 

The copy should explain it simply and effectively. 

The store window, store entrance, clever salesman 
combination, so to speak. 

Yes, people will read a long message when it is really 
necessary to tell it. Simplicity doesn’t argue against 
that. But the advertisement should first ‘‘bull’s-eye” 
something so that when a legion of page turners see only 
the picture, the name of the product and an active head- 
line, then the advertisement—and the message—will 
have registered. 

Make the test yourself. ‘Thumb through any maga- 
zine. Give each page ten seconds. ‘Then name six of 
the advertisements you saw. Now turn back and analyze 
them. You will probably find the six built along 
“poster” lines. The display tells a story whether you 
read the finer print or not. They are not ashamed to be 
called advertisements because they are not too proud 
to work. 

It’s a treat to read an advertisement that follows a 
straight line. Your eye and mind gravitate to it nat- 
urally. The very set-up helps you to read. It may be 
a stunt to dodge the message in, out and around some 
design; but that’s all it is—a stunt—and more than often 
fights off the reader than attracts him. 

There was a time when the very novelty of advertising 
attracted people to it. But that time is past. People 
have not only become advertisingly educated but by the 
very necessity of their busy-ness and the increasing num- 
ber of pages, have become page turners. 

Simplicity in advertising must have that in mind 
always. Tell as short or as long a type story as you 
like, but let the display deliver a message that the page- 
turner will get. Otherwise it is literally lost in the 
shuffle, along with the money that went into it. 


Humphrey M. Bourne 353 


When it stands the page-turning test the advertisement 
has a good flying start. If it doesn’t, then all the men 
of the king’s English won’t rescue it. 

Then the headline: 

If the people won’t come into the store after they’ve 
seen the shop window, they won't buy. 

The picture may be the shop window of the advertise- 
ment; but the headline is the shop entrance. 

The window attracts them. The headline is the way in. 

If it takes an hour to write the advertisement—spend 
another half hour on the headline. That may sound 
trite; but a headline well thought over, gets over. 

Make it a lead line—with a long e—a lead that will 
compel a reading of what follows. If it’s service you’re 
advertising, don’t just say “SERVICE.” Many an 
otherwise good advertisement has been killed deader 
than a doornail by a headline like that. Far better to 
say even ‘How we served Bill Jones right” than to use 
that abstract, dead to the world, one-word headline 
which doesn’t say anything. 

A good headline is half the battle. 

Lazy headlines are hazy headlines. 

A headline that shouts without saying anything is like 
a loud speaker in a deaf and dumb academy. 

A headline that plays on words instead of making 
them work is like a man in a treadmill. 

Plays on words put few selling ideas to work. And, 
remember, you’re paying about twenty times as much for 
headline space as you are for text space. You must boil 
your idea down and then serve it up so that readers will 
like it—and come back for more. 

Don’t let headlines patronize or proclaim the reader’s 
ignorance. <A simple fact simply stated is far better than 
an academical theory pompously propounded. 


354 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Then comes the message proper. Here simplicity 
must rule, or the finest ideas will go galley west. 

One of the greatest leads in copy, as in editorial 
writing, is the reference to experience. 

Brisbane, I think it was, said that the most effective 
editorial is one that tells readers something they already 
know. 

A man may believe you when you tell him something 
he doesn’t know; but he’s doubly convinced when you tell 
him something he does know, and will react to it 
accordingly. 

Tell him that Sirius is a thousand light years away, 
and he’ll believe you. ‘Tell him Edgewater Beach Hotel 
is four miles from the station and he’ll say “‘Righto, call 
a Yellow.” He knows. 

Eversharp made its point by referring to the experi- 
ence of writers with pencils without a point. 

Rubberset by referring to the experience of shavers 
with bristle-shedding shaving brushes. 

The self-filling pen to the experience of those with 
ink-scattering pens. 

Safety razors to the experience of men who couldn't 
shave at all with the old style razor, or couldn’t shave 
properly. 

Reference to experience, adroitly handled, has a double 
edge. It sells the prospect on the thing you’re adver- 
tising, while unselling him on the thing he’s now using. 

And that’s important. You may sell him on the 
thing you’re advertising, but if you don’t unsell him on 
what he’s now using, you’re interesting him but not 
convincing him. 

Say it humanly—say it simply—say it convincingly. 
Bring the reader’s own experience to your aid and he'll 
bring his buying inclination along with it. 

One reference to experience makes your readers kin— 


Humphrey M. Bourne 355 


they warm up to it like a brother or sister—and no pock- 
etbook ever opened to a cold, abstract appeal. 

Keep the message alive. 

We've all visited a lumber yard and heard the droning 
of the buzz saw, when, suddenly the saw rang all over 
the yard and we listened in afresh. That was the 
roughage in the log—the knots that relieved the 
monotony by sounding a new note every so often. 

So, keep the roughage in the copy. A sentence that 
brings the attention up with a jerk is better than one 
which puts it to sleep with studied rhythm and feather- 
bed words. 

A successful salesman is successful because he sustains 
the interest in what he is selling. A new tack here, a 
rising inflection there, a different appeal to reason— 
and the prospect finds himself listening in with new 
interest. 

Successful mail-order copy never sleeps. ‘There isn’t 
a yawn from headline to coupon. It gets and holds at- 
tention and stirs the reader into action. 

Don’t make the advertisement ashamed of being an 
advertisement. All the clever writing in the world 
wouldn’t fool anybody on that. Set it to work and keep 
it working. Never mind if the boys at the round table 
don’t call it ‘‘a clever ad” so long as the returns say it is. 

Keep the roughage in and the ego out. Too much 
smoothness and so-called ‘‘cleverness’ have killed mil- 
lions of dollars’ worth of advertising. Don’t sing them 
to sleep with your story. Keep them awake with your 
message. Lullaby copy sells only itself. 

Now a few words on technical or trade paper 
advertising. 

Of course, a technical advertisement must keep its 
scientific feet on the ground. But it can be humanized 
for all that. 


356 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Those who read technical publications are human be- 
ings, after all, and can be approached as such. A little 
of the “you” will appeal just as readily, and often more 


so, than . 

Technical paper advertising has improved wonder- 
fully in the last few years. What a somber, solemn array 
it used to be! Yet a great many advertisements in the 
technical field still need only a mourning border to com- 
plete their dreariness. 

Can’t we take the technical knowledge of these readers 
for granted in order to “‘humanize’”’ ‘a little more? 
Can’t we write it so that it will appeal to the man on 
the job, or the foreman, or the superintendent, without 
minimizing its effect on the big chief? They’re all 
human. 

The trouble with so many of these advertisements is 
that they try to be hard instead of simple. 

The flesh-and-blood salesman may know all about 
stresses, specific gravity, and all the other gravities; but 
to get a hearing he must first be human, and to be really 
human he must lead to the prospect’s own humanism. 

Peary may have reckoned it in latitude and longitude; 
but to the schoolboy Peary discovered the North Pole, 
which holds far more dramatic interest for the average 
mind than mere talks of compasses, sextants, false hori- 
zons and all the other paraphernalia. 

I have wandered back over some old, time-worn paths. 
Yes, but the thing about these good old paths is that 
we're too inclined to forsake them for new roads which 
so often lead up blind alleys or into deep ditches. 

I love the word “simplicity” as applied to advertising. 
Many a time in my early advertising days did I turn to 
the dictionary for some new, difficult word to build a 
message around. Now I’m more inclined to see if there 


Humphrey M. Bourne Sieh 


isn’t some well-known word of less than four letters that 
expresses it. 

And there, by the way, is a job for some bright pub- 
lishing house—to produce a dictionary of three-letter 
words for advertising men. 

Don’t make it clever; make it simple. If you make 
it simple you make it doubly clever. 

I repeat advertising isn’t hard because it has to be 
hard, but because it has to be simple. That’s the really 
difficult part for the advertising man, and the easy part 
for the reader. 

To summarize: 

Make it stand the page-turning test. 

Paint a human-story picture. 

Dig hard for the big selling factors, and then present 
them simply—in as many or as few words as necessary. 

In short, picture it well, tell it simply, and make them 
want it. 

Never forgetting the advertising man’s prayer: 

‘O Lord, make me short on words and long on ideas.” 


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XXIII 
What Makes Good Retail Copy? 


RutuH Leicu. Born New York, 1895. Early training in 
business, with experience as retail research worker, trade inves- 
tigation work. Writer of retail advertising copy for several 
leading high-class New York department and specialty stores. 
Author of The Human Side of Retail Selling, and Elements of 
Retailing, both of which were selected by the Educational Com- 
mittee of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World for 
use through local advertising clubs in conducting courses in 
retail selling and retail management. Both books are used as 
texts in the public schools of New York, Baltimore, Omaha, 
and other cities. 

Member of Store Research and Educational Division, Grand 
Rapids Show Case Company; traveling throughout the United 
States studying store arrangement and lecturing on retail sales- 
manship and store management. Consultant to large stores 
and national advertisers on retail sales and advertising problems. 


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XXIII 
What Makes Good Retail Copy? 
By Ruth Leigh 


Y contact with large and small merchants over 
the United States has convinced me definitely 
that the reason their advertising does not pro- 

duce better results is that it lacks a plan or policy. I 
have put this question to hundreds of retailers: ‘“‘What 
are you trying to accomplish with your advertising?” 
and invariably, I get the same reply: ‘To sell more 
goods.” But obvious as it may seem, that answer means 
nothing more concrete to the average merchant than just 
what it says. 

To such questions as: ‘What kind of audience are 
you trying to reach?” ‘‘How wide is your trade terri- 
tory?” ‘How big is your appropriation?” “How are 
you dividing it?” I get, for the most part, vague an- 
swers that indicate a palpable lack of thought or 
planning. 

To the question, then, “What makes good retail 
copy?” my first answer is: a definite plan, a merchandis- 
ing plan, that enables a retailer to know exactly where 
he is going with his advertising, whom he is trying to 
reach, where his customers are, and how he is going to 
reach them. | 

This means that at the beginning of the year it will 
be practical for him to decide approximately how much 

361 


362 Masters of Advertising Copy 


he can spend for advertising during the coming year, 
whether the bulk is to be spent in newspapers, or divided 
between newspapers, the mail and other media. It 
means, further, that a dealer must outline for himself, 
as nearly as he can, what his merchandising plan will be 
for the coming year, so that he can build his advertising 
policy around his selling schedule. 

For example, a typical merchandising calendar used 
by one large store for a year was planned in the following 
manner: 


Advertising and Merchandising Schedule 


Januaryerw en es White sales. Pre-inventory sales of 
furs and ready to wear. Annual rug 
sale. 


January 19.... February furniture sales begin. 

January 20.... Midwinter drug and toilet articles sales. 

Bebruaryan si. Continuation of furniture sales. Semi- 
annual housewares sales. 

February 24... March sales of china and glassware 


begin. 
Marcchinin ca. Silk week. Spring ready-to-wear sales 
begin. 
MiATCORIS HU haNs Veiling week. 
Waren. o 3) in Pre-Easter sales begin. 
Marcha tect Easter sales (week of Easter). 
Aprili tiie ane Diamond and jewelry sales. 
ADL wGo eas Gingham week and cotton goods sales. 
April v8uaias. Lace and embroidery week. 
Aprili2iunanseny Hosiery sales. 
Apriliasvoinen. May white sales begin. 
Aprilvesi vias Spring and apparel sales begin. 
May iceman. Continuation of May white sales. 
Mari} oli aatecare Home Sewing Week; sale of notions. 
MAY HL Sis crete Luggage Week. 
May iso Guitinn Bedding Week. 


Maypia7arinen Decoration Day sales. 


Ruth Leigh 363 


WAIITG 1 3 sia a ates . Sales of pearl necklaces. 

SING) 5 5 ate ohetans Sales of bridal gifts, including sil- 
verware and linens. 

MUNGO ce Graduation Day sales begin. 

MONG Le tsrate Pre-inventory sales begin. June sale of 
glassware. 

UNG iL See cress Baby Week. 

Lier hele ie Vacation sales begin. 

piilyprtipew eters Fourth of July sales. 

Vl Ways tetas July sale of sheets, pillow cases and bed 
coverings. 

PUR ve LO wave: ae Clearance sales of summer shoes. 

Valve 2a. Clearance sales of outdoor and summer 
furniture. 

Vio O ce August furniture sales begin. 

Otel 0 teeep. ct. Summer fur sales begin. 

SLUSUSt ule nt sets Final clearances of summer apparel be- 


gin; August fur sales. 

September 1... Sales of china and housewares. 

September 6... School opening sales begin. 

October 11.... Columbus Day sales. 

October 18.... Umbrella Week. 

October 19.... Bedding Week. 

October 30.... Sales of fall goods begin. 

November 1.. Election Day sales. 

November 18.. Blanket Week. 

November 24.. Thanksgiving sales. 

November 29.. Christmas sales begin. 

December 15.. Reductions on toys and other gift 
articles. 

December 27.. SN ae clearance; end of year 
sales. 


Some progressive stores carry out a similar plan in 
daily advertising. For example, one Southern store 
based its copy on the local buying habits of the public, 
and knew beforehand that: 

On Monday it was best to feature piece goods and 


364 Masters of Advertising Copy 


dressmaking accessories, including notions, trimmings, 
laces, embroideries, patterns, etc. 

Tuesday is a popular visiting day in department stores, 
and it is considered profitable, therefore, to feature nov- 
elties. such as leather goods, jewelry and small wares. 

Wednesday is a good day for featuring household 
goods, kitchen utensils, dishes, blankets, linens, silver- 
ware and domestics. | 

Thursday is frequently a visiting day, and stores find 
it profitable to feature novelties, art goods, yarns and 
stamped articles. ‘Thursday is usually a popular day 
for demonstrations and for instructions given in art goods 
departments. 

Friday is a good day for featuring home furnishings 
and household goods, including curtains, draperies, pil- 
lows, and articles of home decoration. 

Saturday is the big ready-to-wear day on which sales 
are greatest in apparel sections. 

Of course, such a schedule is based exclusively on the 
buying customs of a given locality, and illustrates the 
thoroughness with which some retail advertising is 
planned to get best results. 

Successful retail copy, if correctly planned, therefore, 
is based on the needs and habits of the public, and 
renders a service by featuring timely merchandise. To 
secure the interest and attention of the woman reader, a 
good retail advertisement talks in terms of her interests 
and her needs, and timeliness, based on the woman’s 
interests every day, week and season, produces the most 
satisfactory contacts. 

This bring up the second answer to the question: 
What makes good retail copy! ? I believe that the ability 
of the writer to put himself in the reader’s place, and to 
describe merchandise from the viewpoint of a prospective 


Ruth Leigh 365 


buyer, is one essential secret of preparing good adver- 
tising copy. 

Theoretically, this may be easy to do, but I believe 
many retail advertisements fail because store copy writers 
look at merchandise with too close and shrewd:a mer- 
chandising eye. After all, to a retailer and to his writers 
such an article as a raincoat is a piece of merchandise 
with profit tied up in it. It is an article hanging in the 
dealer’s stock rooms which he desires to sell, but always, 
to him, it is ‘‘merchandise.’’ Unless he is practised and 
skillful in writing retail advertisements, his copy is likely 
to smack of too much store atmosphere. 

The customer, on the other hand, views such an article 
as a raincoat from a fundamentally different point of 
view. To hin, it is never ‘“‘merchandise”’; it is a garment 
he needs to give service, to protect his health, to give 
him comfort, to bring about economy by protection of 
his clothes. 

Unless a copy writer is able to forget his store view- 
point, to forget that he is writing so many words to sell 
so many articles of merchandise, he is totally unable to 
think of the goods in terms of a customer’s needs and 
desires. 

As a matter of fact, many advertisements fail because 
the writer assumes that the public is more interested in 
the store than it actually is. People are essentially 
selfish, and an advertising writer who believes that Mrs. 
Smith is interested in his store because it is his store is 
greatly mistaken. Mrs. Smith is loyal to a store and its 
merchandise only until her pocketbook is touched, and 
there her loyalty and interest cease. 

She thinks in terms of her own wants, her family, her 
life, her home, her children, her needs, and a skilful 
copy writer must be aware of the woman reader’s point of 
view as she picks up a newspaper. If he wants to sell 


366 Masters of Advertising Copy 


her a raincoat, he must forget his store’s viewpoint of 
that garment as a piece of merchandise, and think of it 
in the terms of health and service, as does Mrs. Smith. 

A third consideration that produces good retail copy is 
the absence of too constant bargain appeal. Many re- 
tailers forget that they cannot make the public believe 
that they can constantly prosper while selling everything 
at low cost. 

As a matter of fact, the public to-day is fed-up on sales, 
and has, because of too frequent stressing of the bargain 
appeal, become more or less suspicious of the sales of- 
fered. The public is oversold on sales; it has been too 
much jazzed by the hysterical sale mania that has over- 
taken the retailers of the country. To-day, almost every- 
thing is a sale; we have Men’s Sales, Women’s Sales, 
Anniversary Sales, Inventory Sales, Big Sales, Remark- 
able Sales, Extraordinary Sales, and so on. 

I believe that the wisest thing any retailer can do to-day 
is to sell his public staple merchandise at fair prices, 
instead of trying to make that public believe that he is 
giving something for nothing. Indirectly, he will be 
helping himself, because this sales mania has caused the 
public to demand sales, and has really hurt the distribu- 
tion of good merchandise sold at fair margins of profit. 
In my opinion it is the absence of a bargain appeal that 
makes retail advertising distinctive to-day. 

Too much exaggeration is a fault of many retail adver- 
tisements, and a copy writer who can make moderate, 
straight-forward statements, without talking in too many 
superlatives, is pretty sure to get his copy read. Perhaps 
this exaggeration is the outgrowth of too much jazz in 
advertising. In any event, the public believes to-day that 
advertising claims more than it can deliver. 

Pick up any newspaper and see how the advertisements 
claim to have “the most wonderful merchandise,” the 


Ruth Leigh 367 


‘finest assortments,” ‘‘most excellent candies,’ ‘‘most 
amazing values.’’ ‘To-day, retail advertising is about 
ninety-nine per cent bombast, and the avoidance of this 
bombast is a fourth consideration of good retail copy. 
moderate restrained statements in honest,  straight- 
forward style. ‘The retailer who constantly cries ‘‘wolf” 
by talking in continual superlatives will find himself un- 
believed when he really wants to make an important an- 
nouncement in his advertising. We need less exaggera- 
tion in our retail copy to-day and more restraint. 

Fifth, we find that an element of good retail adver- 
tising to-day is the ability to avoid saying too much and 
to avoid featuring too many articles. A merchant who 
attempts to tell about all his merchandise in a small news- 
paper space is as unwise as the merchant who follows the 
English style of showing almost the entire merchandise 
stock in the store windows. 

We find a merchant urging the public to ‘‘come in and 
see our extensive stock of lamps for every purpose— 
boudoir lamps, living-room lamps, nursery lamps, office 
lamps, in many styles, varieties and prices.” ‘The 
reader’s mental impression is hazy when he finishes read- 
ing this copy. Obviously, a merchant would do better 
to follow the simple, old-fashioned rule that we often 
give to unskilled writers of small-store copy. When in 
doubt, give picture, description, and price, of one article 
or one group of similar articles. 

An advertisement calling attention to “a group of 
boudoir lamps, ivory finished, with pink, blue or gold 
colored shades, strongly made, and simple in design, 
priced $4.50,” will obviously leave a more definite impres- 
sion in the mind of a reader than a general, haphazard 
description of twenty different styles of lamps. | 

Open or indirect ‘‘knocking” of retail competitors char- 
acterizes many retail advertisements, and this is always 


368 Masters of Advertising Copy 


poor policy. The most effective retail copy to-day makes 
no mention of competitors and their merchandise. To 
acknowledge the existence of competition weakens a store 
advertising. Far better to let the advertising stand on 
its own merits, and the values to speak for themselves 
than to attempt to compare it with the goods of other 
stores. 

It is seldom good policy for the retail copy writer, no 
matter how inexperienced, to attempt to imitate the style 
of advertising used by other stores. ‘This results in 
creating an artificial atmosphere around the imitative 
copy, and seldom achieves the essential purpose of all 
good retail advertisements—to create an individual, a 
personality around the store and its merchandise. The 
personality that the retail copy writer builds in and about 
his advertisements is a precious thing if it can be carried 
out in all the store’s publicity. 

Too many retail advertisements lack news value. Re- 
tailers attempt to imitate the advertisements of others, 
instead of preparing new, original material about their 
merchandise that answers such questions about the store 
and merchandise as: Who, What, Where, When and 
Why? 

Although there are many who disagree with this sug- 
gestion, I believe that the best thing any retail copy writer 
can do to study a popular, successful type of retail copy is 
to give close attention to the well-known mail-order cata- 
logs, to find out how they answer these questions of Who, 
What, Where, etc. They follow the homely formula 
of Picture, Description and Price on which so much suc- 
cessful retail copy is based. For accurate detail in de- 
scribing merchandise, choice of fitting words, talking from 
the reader’s point of view, the writer of retail advertising 
can find no better example. 

A retail advertisement only half serves its purpose if it 


Ruth Leigh 369 


is considered finished after it appears in the newspaper. 
The next step in the preparation of good retail copy is to 
inform the sales people of what is being advertised and 
the talking points of that merchandise. A store’s sales 
people are entrusted with the follow-up of the advertis- 
ing—personal contact with the store’s customers. Un- 
less they themselves are thoroughly sold on the mer- 
chandise that is advertised they will not be able intelli- 
gently to sell it to the store’s customers. 

A typical form of preparation for an advertised sale 
used by a Detroit department store in preparation for its 
August Linen Sale is shown below: 


A. Merchandise thoroughly shopped by Comparative 
Shopping Bureau Report: No competition. 

B. Sales force: 

I. Quota increased from 11 to 21. 
(a) Survey of departments by means of qualifica- 
tion cards. 
(b) New sales people placed in department two 
days before sale. 
(1) Introduced to department members. 
(2) Instructed in stock. 
(c) Quota of sales force filled by contingents on 
first morning of sale. 

C. Arrangement of merchandise; all stock arranged on 
tables and shelves in the department on the night 
before the sale. 

D. Merchandise meeting with sales people, held by buyer 
8:40 A.M., first morning of sale, August Ist. 

1. Merchandise: 
(a) Location; 
(b) Materials; 
(c) Style; 

(d) Quality; 


370 Masters of Advertising Copy 


(e) Sales; 
CF} ePrices: 
(g) Report of shopping. 

2. Throughout the buyer displayed, as well as talked 
about the merchandise, thus showing how best 
to handle it. 

3. Older sales people in charge of each stock pointed 
out, in order that questions might be directed, 
thus saving time. 

4. Each girl supplied with pamphlet containing all 
the items with prices on sale. 

5. New girls directed to go about the department and 
familiarize themselves with merchandise. Later 
in the day, each girl assigned to definite stock. 
Girls had privilege of selling throughout the 
department. 

FE. Result: Before customers entered the department, the 
sales people had been 

1. Introduced to members of the department; 

2. Given help on: 

(a) System; 

(b) Merchandise. 
Quota aimed at for the day, $2,000. 
Amount actually sold, $3,340. 


XXIV 
The Art of Visualizing Good Copy 


Ben Nasu. Advertising counsellor, New York, creator and 
developer of the “vizualizing” function in advertisement prepara- 
tion. Was for years with large advertising agencies and con- 
structed many well known campaigns. By speeches and writings 
on advertising art and layout he has influenced the adoption of the 
term “vizualizer” as part of advertising agency function. 


ions he Sue en he 


meet or 


44 


XXIV 
The Art of Visualizing Good Copy 
By Ben Nash 


necessity for another. It needed no imagination 

because every man knew what he needed and he 
knew what he had. So he exchanged the thing he had 
for the thing he needed. 

When the art of selling progressed from this primitive 
exchange of necessities to the stage where the use and 
value of merchandise was not at once obvious, imagina- 
tion was brought in. 

Imagination since has been the most valuable member 
in the construction of the successful selling plan. 

It is true enough that in many a successful selling cam- 
paign imagination has been intuitive. Nevertheless it 
has been the vital factor without which the plan would 
have failed. 

In order to insure success in a campaign, imagination 
should be recognized as a vital fundamental. If there is 
imagination we can organize it and know where we are 
getting with it. 

This enables us to make imagination effective in selling 
in every stage from manufacturer to retailer. We may 
measure imagination by a number of well-proven rules in 
every stage of visual selling—in research, plan, copy and 
in every visual expression. 

The language which everybody understands is visual 

373 


| Bassoons selling was a simple exchange of one 


374 Masters of Advertising Copy 


symbol of color, texture, form and arrangement. But 
you must know how to talk to the eye. You must under- 
stand the rules of ‘‘visual expression” to attain effective 
reaction. | 

Think of the numberless vehicles for using this art— 
and to a more practical end if used scientifically. Type, 
color, white space, textures, pictures, in every printed 
medium; merchandise, window displays, billboards, pack- 
ages, demonstrations. At every glance of the eye—a 
skilfully directed incentive to direct selling actions. 

Selling through advertising in any of its various forms 
is accomplished through three processes: (1) through the 
conception of sales-making ideas; (2) through the effec- 
tive conveyance of sales-making ideas; and (3) through 
the conviction brought about by the sales ideas. 

We receive impressions or messages through sight, 
hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling—but sight is more 
important than the others combined. 

Color alone has a definite effect upon our emotions and 
actions, the use of which is still undeveloped for the trans- 
mitting of advertising messages. 

Our study is for the purpose of determining what part 
of the selling job can be accomplished by way of the eye. 

We are dealing with the way to get the most effective 
visual results. 

We are dealing with the most receptive ‘‘gateway” to 
the mind. We can keep that gateway open or swinging 
free and clear. We can bar the gateway with visual 
irrelevancy and pay the price. We can have our buying 
public climb the wall or unlock the rusty locks if we are 
willing to pay for this waste. 

We are dealing with an Art. 

We are searching for “‘the Art of getting results which 
being built on visual psychology are harmonious and 
effective.’ Art is not pictures—a picture is only one 


Ben Nash aA5 


form of art. Art is the skilful and systematic arrange- y 
ment of means for the attainment of a desired end. 

In considering any visual expression, then, in regard 
to the definition ‘‘art’”? we must first clearly think of the 
“desired end” and of the symbols of color, texture, form 
and arrangement which are relevant to it. 

In every advertisement, for instance, the end is to sell 
a service or product. Accordingly, so far as each adver- 
tising presentation is concerned, it must be considered 
as more than a picture merely; it must be considered as a 
positive force. For in the business of advertising, where 
every dollar must be efficiently used, there should be no 
place for a single element which does not carry directed 
power enough to offset the sales resistance to the product 
advertised. 

Every product, product display or piece of advertising 
material should be a unit. A unit, to which nothing can 
be added, and from which nothing can be taken without 
destroying its meaning—a unit in which every element is 
harmonious and consequently fully effective. 

Every element which goes to make up the harmonious 
unit has its values, uses and limitations and when these 
are recognized and understood they produce order. 
Through an understanding of the forces at our command 
and an orderly use of these forces we can attain our 
results with the least output of time, energy, money and 
materials. 

A vast amount of selling through the eye has been 
done during the carrying on of advertising. An equal 
amount of ineffective presentation has found its places 
in the advertising archives. Good and powerful sales 
conception has been thwarted by ineffective presentation 
to the eye. 

Through an easy control of the fundamentals, creative 
talents can have a wider range of freedom of expression. 


376 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Through this control advertising expression will reflect 
greater character, individuality and harmonious effective- 
ness because the essentials will be automatically taken care 
of when the process of creating is going on. 

The forces which are applied to impress the eye are: 


CONCEPTION Part of an idea 
in other words The whole idea 
THE IDEA IDEA) Direct idea 
Indirect idea or impression 
CONVEYANCE Grist 
in other words Pere 
THE MESSAGE MESSAGE} Rorm 
Arrangement 
CONVICTION Relevancy of Color 
in other words | Retevancy of Texture 
THE RESULT RESULT J Relevancy of Form 
Harmonious unity of the 
whole 


IDEA. 


The forces found in the Ideas which can be conveyed 
to the eye have definite characteristics. They can be 
Direct Ideas; they can be Indirect through inference or 
general impression; they can be but a part of a Composite 
Idea, or they may be the Complete Idea. 


MESSAGE. 


There are four physical forces which are used in the 
advertising message. Whether the advertising message 
is an advertisement, a product, a package, a window dis- 
play, a piece of printed matter, etc., these four forces 
are at work. 


Ben Nash ae 


First, color—Color talks immediately. It speaks 
before the eye or mind has had an opportunity to absorb 
any other detail of structure, form or arrangement. 
Color is a sensation. We respond to its stimulation in 
accordance with psychological laws. Every color causes 
a reaction, and the reaction should be reckoned with in 
the advertising expression. 

Second, texture—Texture, like color, talks in terms 
of sensation. Its power can be applied to aid in the 
presentation of a message. It is like the stage setting 
for the actor’s lines. It is the harmonious environment 
from which the message is delivered. 

To-day’s reproduction processes and the advancement 
in the paper industry along texture and color lines afford 
an opportunity for a wide range of expression. Texture 
should harmonize. 

Third, form—Every form used in an advertising 
message is a symbol. Every symbol has a meaning, defi- 
nite or remote in varying degrees. The forms with 
which we work are pictures, ornamentation, type. Each 
of these forms can do different kinds of work. 

Pictures: Pictures should talk. They must be relevant. 
They can convey a part of the message or an entire 
message. Frequently they only establish a setting or an 
environment for an advertising message when they might 
have done a more complete job. 

Ornamentation: Ornament has a language, a meaning. 
Ornament can embellish and create an atmosphere or 
environment. It should be applied only when it is essen- 
tial to the desired result. To be in good form it must 
be historically correct and relevant to the message. 

Type: Type is a series of symbols evolved from the 
early picture writing. The individual type letters are 
read in letter-group form or word symbols. Long before 
(3000 years B. C., the Egyptian wrote in sign-group 


378 Masters of Advertising Copy 


symbols. To-day’s type symbols, as a result of the devel- 
opment of type faces, give us an opportunity to convey 
our thoughts with fuller meaning. The various styles 
of type can convey the same words in different styles and 
create different impressions, atmospheres or environ- 
ments. ‘Type should be relevant and express the idea 
and spirit of the advertising message. 

Fourth, arrangement—The arrangement is the force 
which can give character to the advertising message. 
Arrangement is the force which gives sequence and em- 
phasis to the various parts of the message. 

There are two fundamental arrangements—Balance 
and Movement, which have innumerable applications. 

Arrangement should be relevant and harmonious. 

These four forces have thousands of applications in 
their various combinations: 

In the advertisement, the judicious selection of the 
symbols that get over the exact idea, the skilful juxta- 
position of the various parts into a harmonious and 
effective arrangement offer a field of visual expression 
which is without limit. A study of the outstanding ex- 
amples of skilful advertising presentation will show that, 
though produced intuitively, the laws of visualization 
have been maintained. 

Coming now to the relation between the visual ap- 
proach and the text part of the advertising message, we 
must first view the ‘“‘message”’ itself; then, by disinte- 
grating it, discover its component parts and find what 
relation each part bears to the others. 

This process has been accomplished in numerous ways 
by various psychologists and various writers on the sub- 
ject of advertising; but as we are now only interested in 
problems to be met in every-day advertising practice, we 
will break our “‘message”’ into the four parts which experi- 
ence has shown to answer every question: 


Ben Nash 379 


. PURPOSE 

. Facts 

. TONE oR MANNER 
. APPROACH. 


WD 


We have selected these four specific divisions because 
they constitute the backbone of the advertising message 
and are related in a manner calculated to build an adver- 
tising message with the greatest possible directness and 
in its most logical order. 

Proceeding through these four factors in this order 
the message will be logically built. If we reverse them 
in order we shall have our advertising message as the 
reader gets it: 

4. APPROACH. This brings about an appeal to the 
reader (or making effective contact with the reader’s 
mind) and by attracting him helps to carry him through 
in a particular 

3. TONE or MANNER or SPIRIT. ‘This brings about a 
state of mind with the reader and makes possible the 
most effective absorption of our 

2. FACTS. ‘These, if they possess in themselves quali- 
ties of advantage and are convincingly stated, should 
cause the reader to so act as to accomplish our 

I. PURPOSE. 

The advertising man should arrive at definite judg- 
ments regarding each of these four component parts in an 
advertising message before he can apply his tools—the 
visual symbols, which, when properly used, become effec- 
tive visualization. 

In other words, he must crystallize his ideas in think- 
ing (or mental visualization) before sitting down with 
an artist with the idea of arriving at the physical visuali- 
zation, which will illustrate or symbolize the advertising 
message. For if he does this with only an indefinite con- 


380 Masters of Advertising Copy 


ception in his mind there is bound to be a quite unneces- 
sary picture waste or ineffective presentation. 

If the advertising man, however, determines the PuR- 
POSE, seeks out the salient FACTS, determines the TONE 
and the APPROACH as a matter of advertising strategy, if 
he adopts the attitude which in fact would be necessary if 
he had to sell his goods in person, then he has reached 
the point where he is ready to apply his visual symbols in 
the direction of bringing about the speediest presentation 
of his message. ‘The visualization will then be a har- 
monious evolution, distinctive in character and fully 
effective. 


XXV 
Old and New Days in Advertising Copy 


JoHN Lee Maurin. Born in Muscatine, Iowa, December 
14, 1869. Wayland Academy, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Night 
school course, Chicago College of Law, one year. City editor 
and manager of Muscatine Journal, 1887-90; became connected 
with Advertising Department of Chicago Daily News, 1891; 
later advertising manager, the Interior Press, Mahin Advertis- 
ing Company, Chicago, 1898-1916; Director-at-Large, Federal 
Advertising Agency, New York City, since 1916. Author: 
Mahin Advertising Data Book; Advertising and Salesmanship, 
1916. Has lectured before University of Chicago, University 
of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, etc. 


i oe 

ena WUE 
a Td ae, te e ' q 
A HAMS ayaa le) ish at 


Me 5hs mene haute 
ALM 
MUTT 


se x 


XXV 
Old and New Days in Advertising Copy 
By John Lee Mahin 


M: first experience in writing copy was in selling 


advertising space in the Muscatine, Iowa, 

Journal, which my father edited for over fifty 
years. The local merchants in the early ’90s wanted 
something ‘‘catchy.’’ They particularly liked such ex- 
pressions as “Columbus discovered America in 1492, but 
Bill Jones discovered how to sell the best groceries at the 
lowest prices in 1875 and has been doing it ever since.” 

Everybody was happy if some customer would say to 
one of our merchants, ‘“That was a clever ad you had in 
the Journal last night.” | 

Our rates for display space were so low we discouraged 
frequent changes of copy because type-setting was 
expensive. 

We could get 80 cents an inch for “locals” against 5 
cents an inch for display, so we concentrated on selling 
locals. 

There was very little opportunity for me to make any 
more than bare statements of new goods and prices. 

Occasionally I had a chance for a “‘write-up’’—when a 
merchant moved, put in a new store front, or a new store 
was started—or an old one changed hands. ‘Then I fol- 
lowed the method of writing in which I was trained by 
my uncle, A. W. Lee, as a reporter. His instructions 
were to tell the story in the simplest and fewest words ia 

383 


384 Masters of Advertising Copy 


one paragraph—as that might be all the space that the 
managing editor would consider it deserved—and then 
elaborate the facts from as many different points as would 
be interesting to the greatest number of readers and then 
in the headlines attract as many people as possible to the 
important features of the story. | 

After thirty-five years’ experience I am still convinced 
that this is a safe, sound method of procedure, and the 
young copy writer had better stick to it until he knows he 
is safe in making any deviations. This method is depend- 
able, day in and day out, when the advertiser himself has 
a clear-cut conception of his message and can visualize 
the kind of people to whom he wishes to say it. It gives 
the copy writer opportunity to show his skill over a wide 
range of responsibilities. 

The copy writer must remember that good advertis- 
ing is essentially reiteration. He must avoid hackneyed, 
wornout expressions. He must continually express the 
same ideas but constantly develop new ways of doing so. 

In one of William Allen White’s books, he says one 
of the problems of the editor of the society column in a 
small town newspaper is to describe the same dress sev- 
eral times during the season and give the reader who 
was not present the impression that each time the lady 
wore a new dress. 


My first conception that advertising copy could be 
more than letting the reader know what the advertiser 
wanted him to know—that it could be really creative in 
its character and especially so in its reflex on the adver- 
tiser himself—was given me by a subscription solicitor 
who was ambitious to become an advertising man. 

This man’s name was John A. Jelly. He owned a 
farm about twelve miles from Muscatine. He was as- 
sessor in his township and had the “‘itch” to visit people. 


John Lee Mahin 385 


My suspicions are still strong that the farm itself paid 
best during his absence, under the management of his 
wife and son. He was a wonderful solicitor for sub- 
scribers, and he and I knew from frequently consulting 
our maps of Muscatine City and Muscatine County the 
name of every family that did not take the Journal; and, 
what was more important, the reason for not doing so. 
From Mr. Jelly’s reports, many ideas were put up to 
the editorial department for both elaboration and soft- 
pedaling, and a most accurate line kept on the value of 
our “features.” 

One evening Mr. Jelly asked me to let him solicit 
advertising in the city. This seemed so revolutionary 
that I was sure it was impossible, but I thought the best 
way out of it would be for Mr. Jelly to try it and quit 
himself when he found he was not adapted for it, of which 
I was sure. SoI told him to try it out by calling on a very 
successful music house conducted by two brothers who 
were highly educated Germans. I had never been able 
to write anything about music that they liked, which 
would bring them any business. 

Mr. Jelly brought me next day an advertisement scrib- 
bled on a piece of wrapping paper, which he said he had 
read to the Schmidt Brothers and they had authorized 
him to print it. The headline I recall distinctly. It was 
“Why Do the Boys Leave the Farm?” ‘The text devel- 
oped the thought that if a farmer wanted to keep his boys 
and girls at home he ought to make his home attractive, 
and then asked the question, ‘‘How can you do so better 
than by having one of Schmidt’s pianos or organs in it?” 
Then the text suggested that if a farmer bought a piano 
or organ, the Schmidt Family Orchestra would go out 
and install it, and the farmer could invite his friends 
and “‘have a pleasant evening.”’ 

There was nothing in the copy about the technique of 


386 Masters of Advertising Copy 


music. I do not recall that even the names of the pianos 
or organs were mentioned. ‘The ten-strike, of course, 
was the Schmidt Family Orchestra. It was Mr. Jelly’s 
idea to use this orchestra directly in merchandising. 
Everybody knew there was such an orchestra, as these 
brothers and their children were passionately fond of 
music and frequently played together. No one had yet 
suggested that this orchestra go out to a farm house. 
The Schmidts adopted the suggestion so quickly that I 
should not be surprised to have heard them say a few 
years later that they had originated it. 

It is needless to say that this piece of copy “pulled.” 
It sold pianos, it sold organs, it sold sheet music. Now 
just a word about the writing of this copy. Mr. Jelly’s 
spelling and construction was like Ring Lardner’s. His 
copy was always rewritten without in any way changing 
the purpose of the appeal or eliminating any of his collo- 
quialisms. Merchandising the advertising—which is the 
reflex effect on the advertiser himself and his employees 
—was initiated, as far as I am concerned, by this incident 
and others that followed. 


When I went to Chicago in 1921 I met for the first 
time the advertising manager who wrote his own copy. 
I was particularly fortunate in working with George L. 
Dyer, who was advertising manager for Hart, Schaffner 
and Marx, in initiating the national magazine advertising 
for this house. 

Mr. Dyer started the printing of style books and selling 
them to the dealers. He was the first to have an illus- 
tration of a man wearing clothes with the natural wrinkles 
in them when the wearer was in a comfortable position. 
He never wavered in his conviction that the purpose of 
advertising was to get people to think the way the adver- 
tiser wanted them to think and that the best work was 


John Lee Mahin 387 


done by the advertiser when people thought the adver- 
tiser’s way, but believed they were thinking that way 
because of the exercise of their own unaided judgment. 

He once said to me, ‘‘I am never complimented when a 
man tells me I am writing clever copy, but when he asks 
me if we are really making as good clothes as our adver- 
tisements claim, I know I have sold him the idea and it’s 
up to the salesman to do the rest. 

Joseph Leyendecker was getting $4.00 a week at J. 
Manz & Co. when Mr. Dyer discovered him. Mr. 
Dyer told me that Leyendecker would be a great artist, 
but an advertising man should use an artist only as an 
artisan. It was his theory that the artist should be con- 
sulted only on how to express the message of the adver- 
tiser and never on what the message should be. When 
I went to Italy and saw the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel 
that Michael Angelo lay on his back for four years to 
paint, I saw additional proof of Mr. Dyer’s theory that 
genius is not debarred from development by obstacles. 

One of the current fallacies is that the style of the 
writer or the artist or the organization is more important 
to an advertiser than the services of experts who believe 
their best work is done in developing an individual, dis- 
tinctive style for the advertising itself. 

It is hard for any man to see the credit of his work 
accorded to others. Mr. Dyer was human. Aan incident 
in his career will show that he did not lose anything by 
sticking to his convictions. 

Mr. Dyer and I both realized that Mr. Schaffner 
started into national advertising with great caution. For 
two years he was in a position to stop and say he had 
made the experiment in the interest of his dealers but 
had found a better way to help them. 

Finally an interview appeared in a trade paper in which 
Mr. Schaffner was given the entire credit for the adver- 


388 Masters of Advertising Copy 


tising idea and its development. Mr. Dyer’s name was 
not even mentioned. 

Mr. Dyer was furious. He poured out his wrath to 
me. I argued with him that Mr. Schaffner, in permitting 
the article to be published, was paying the greatest pos- 
sible compliment to Mr. Dyer. It was sincere proof 
of the success of his work. 

Mr. Schaffner was definitely committed to continue na- 
tional advertising. Mr. Dyer’s job was secure as long as 
he wanted it. I told him that I was sure that in three 
months he would have an offer from a competing house 
because competitors have a way of sizing up each other 
at their real value. I was sure that men who knew 
Mr. Schaffner had not originated the national advertising 
idea would want to talk to the man who had, as soon as 
Mr. Schaffner was willing to accept the credit. 

My prediction came true. The Kirschbaums, of 
Philadelphia, employed Mr. Dyer at a salary of $25,000 
ayear. Advertising history should know the story of his 
experiences with them. When they pressed him for copy 
as good as Hart, Schaffner and Marx, he said he could 
not write it until they made their clothes as good as Hart, 
Schaffner and Marx made theirs. Mr. Dyer, I firmly 
believe, maintained that professional stand until his un- 
timely death. He would not write copy that he did not 
believe to be true. 


My personal experiences with Ralph Tilton, John E. 
Kennedy, J. K. Fraser, B. J. Mullaney, Witt K. Coch- 
rane, Wilbur D. Nesbit, J. M. Campbell, Elbert Hub- 
bard, and Dr. Frank Crane, and my observation of the 
work of other copy writers, convince me there are three 
clearly defined types of writers. Elbert Hubbard and 
Dr. Crane know how to write the language the masses 
like to read. Arthur Brisbane and Herbert Kaufman 


John Lee Mahin 389 


both have this power which, I believe, is a product of 
natural gifts and persistent application with a little shade 
in favor of endowed talent. 

These men write in their own way and their style 
is unmistakable to those who know them, whether their 
names are signed to the advertisements or not. Forest 
Crissey, B. J. Mullaney, Wilbur D. Nesbit and Witt K. 
Cochrane can tell the story that big men, like J. Ogden 
Armour, Thomas Wilson, Samuel Insull, E. A. Stuart, 
and Henry C. Lytton ought to tell the public in a much 
better way than these men could possibly do themselves. 

These writers use the vocabulary and the ideas of the 
men whose story they are telling. They reveal these men 
through the written word as these men express themselves 
in their spoken word. In my judgment this is the hardest 
test of writing technique—to tell the story so that it 
reads as if the advertiser wrote it himself. 

J. K. Fraser and W. B. Swann are of the type of men 
who have most largely made advertising what it is to-day. 
They are honest, earnest, painstaking, careful, courag- 
eous and accurate. Neither would thank me if I said he 
was a brilliant man. Mr. Fraser originated ‘Spotless 
Town” for Sapolio and seems desirous of having every 
one forget it. 

John E. Kennedy belongs to a different school. Mr. 
Kennedy originated ‘“‘Reason Why Copy” and was vio- 
lently opposed to space being used for ‘“‘mere publicity.” 
He argued that if such advertising paid the advertiser, 
this made the waste just that much more culpable be- 
cause it was putting a premium on mediocrity. 


An instance of the way Mr. Kennedy operated may be 
illuminating. After being extensively advertised as the 
$16,000 copy writer for Lord and Thomas, Mr. Ken- 
nedy started out as a free lance. He offered to write 


390 Masters of Advertising Copy 


ten advertisements for $2,500. At that time, Armour 
& Co. were clients of the Mahin Advertising Company, 
and we bought a Kennedy campaign for them. Mr. 
Kennedy started in by reading all the literature he 
could lay his hands on relating to hams, bacon and lard. 
He. collected a list of facts that when stated by him were 
indeed most interesting. He went down to the stock- 
yards and, starting with the live hog, followed all the 
processes until lard, ham and bacon became merchantable 
products. He worked at his home and when his cam- 
paign was ready I made an appointment with Mr. T. J. 
Conners, the Armour General Superintendent. Mr. 
Conners had E. B. Merritt and B. J. Mullaney at the 
meeting. Mr. Kennedy read his ten advertisements. 
Mr. Mullaney interposed some suggestions. Mr. Ken- 
nedy handed Mr. Mullaney several affidavits signed by 
advertisers to the effect that he had largely increased their 
returns with the terse command “‘You—read these.”’ Mr. 
Mullaney read them, looked at me with a twinkle in his 
eye and left Mr. Kennedy to Mr. Conners’ tender hands. 

Mr. Conners had been P. D. Armour’s secretary in his 
youth. He had a direct way of settling matters when he 
spoke, although he was a good listener. Mr. Kennedy’s 
copy was based on the assumption that Armour & Co. 
would drop what Mr. Kennedy called the meaningless 
“Star” as a brand name and substitute his coined word 
“Epicured.” Mr. Conners said, as P. D. Armour had 
originated the use of the word ‘“‘Star’’, it would not and 
could not be dropped, and no one would even discuss it 
with J. Ogden Armour. 

Mr. Kennedy and I left. Mr. Kennedy spent two 
hours telling me that the packing business was one in 
which initiative, imagination and talent were not per- 
mitted to develop. He commented on Mr. Conners’ 
mental and physical characteristics in anything but a com- 


John Lee Mahin 391 


plimentary manner. He characterized Mr. Merritt and 
Mr. Mullaney as “Yes”? men,—apparently the lowest 
depth to which an advertising man could sink. 

He went home and came back in three days with ten 
of the finest advertisements I ever read. Everyone was 
pleased with them. He told the story of the wonderful 
epicured process of curing hams and bacon and how the 
Star—P. D. Armour’s insignia of quality—was placed on 
only the products of one out of every fifteen hogs. 

Another case where the obstacles placed by the obdu- 
rate advertiser apparently assisted rather than retarded 
the expression of genius! 


So far I have said nothing about the artist as a pro- 
ducer of copy. When I was a solicitor for J. Walter 
Thompson under C. E. Raymond in Chicago in 1893, 
Oscar Binner dominated the copy for Pabst. His Egyp- 
tian black and white illustrations were the most discussed 
appearing in the magazines at that time. Later, Emery 
Mapes with his Cream of Wheat negro initiated the 
‘Minneapolis Style” of copy used so long by the Munsing 
Underwear Co. and Washburn-Crosby Co. At Cope- 
lin’s Studio I made an actual photograph of a Kohlsaat 
waiter and induced Emery Mapes to substitute it for the 
one he was using to advertise Cream of Wheat, which 
inaugurated the famous ‘“‘Cream of Wheat” Negro chef. 
I also photographed underwear on living models for ad- 
vertising Munsing Underwear. 


To-day, the term ‘‘copy” covers specialized skill and 
training in the search for and selection of the idea which 
shall be expressed in the advertiser’s campaign. Copy 
must take cognizance of both the extent and limitations of 
readers’ interests, incomes, tastes, habits and methods of 
buying. 


392 Masters of Advertising Copy 


Copy must compete for attention with many other 
appeals for the readers’ free dollars. A man who takes 
a trip around the world will probably not buy an auto- 
mobile. A man may buy a radio and get along with last 
year’s overcoat; children may go to a movie instead of 
spending their money for candy. ‘The width, depth, 
height and extent of the problems are too vast to be even 
sketched here. 

Some copy must merely furnish leads for personal 
salesmen or mail order follow-ups to complete the sale. 
Copy that tells the whole story here handicaps rather 
than helps the salesmen. Some copy must sell the dealer, 
some must sell the consumer, some must sell confidence to 
the advertiser’s organization. 

But, any way you consider it, copy is the inner key to 
success in advertising. 


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